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89% The East May 31

A Rage in Harlem (1991)

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No Score Yet...

Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 3
Fresh: 1 | Rotten: 2

audience

54

liked it
Average Rating: 3.2/5
User Ratings: 3,184

My Rating

Movie Info

Bill Duke directs this quirky film adaptation of Chester Himes' crime novel -- a heavily plotted gangster tale with a sweet love story hidden underneath. The film begins in Natchez, Mississippi in 1956. During a police shoot-out with the mob leader Slim's (Badja Djola) gang, Slim's moll Imabelle (Robin Givens) takes off with a cadre of stolen gold. As a result, Imabelle is chased by Slim's mob from Mississippi to New York. By the time she reaches Harlem, she is broke and has to figure out a way

Sep 2, 2003

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All Critics (19) | Top Critics (8) | Fresh (9) | Rotten (3)

It's hard to believe but this film offered the first to feature a black glamorous woman--Robin Givens--since Diana Ross's ill-fated Mahogany.

October 31, 2006 Full Review Source: EmanuelLevy.Com
EmanuelLevy.Com

Strong adaptation of Chester Himes' pulp thriller

January 26, 2005
Film Journal International

Forgoes good taste in the name of exuberant entertainment.

February 16, 2003 Full Review Source: All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide

Surprisingly funny

July 30, 2002
Mountain Xpress (Asheville, NC)

Audience Reviews for A Rage in Harlem

(Includes one minor spoiler, but it's unrelated to the plot and really more of a recommendation.)

Surprised to see so few votes and comments for A Rage in Harlem - it was a modest commercial hit in Britain, so perhaps the all-black casting and setting just didn't play Peoria.

The tone of this stylish, good-looking period crime adventure swings wildly between brutal, raunchy, tragic and comic, but a clever, funny script and likeable characters - especially Gregory Hines's big-hearted wiseguy Goldy, but also several delightfully written minor roles - maintain attention and sympathy throughout what could otherwise have been a bumpy ride. It's an emotionally engaging film, much more character-driven than the average urban thriller of the 1990s.

Its purely incidental pleasures are many, topped by a splendid musical treat in the shape of cult R 'n' B hero Screamin' Jay Hawkins, giving a no-holds-barred performance of his voodoo classic I Put a Spell on You at the Harlem Undertakers' Ball. If you have a taste for the old school of black show business, this sequence will have you holding up the rest of the picture until you've given Screamin' Jay an encore.

Thrills, laughs, and pathos, dished up with verve and heart, make a film that many of us still remember very affectionately.
October 16, 2009
matertenebraum

Super Reviewer

Average comic thriller interesting only for it's unusual adaptation of the book upon it was based, as it concentrates on the crooks rather than the cops.
December 7, 2006
garyX
xGary Xx

Super Reviewer

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