Movie Review: I’m Gonna Git You Sucka (1988)

The movie stars Kennen Ivory Wayans, Bernie Casey, Jim Brown, Isaac Hayes and Damon Wayans.

I originally watched this movie a long time ago (when I was still in high school) and, even though I didn’t remember much about it other than the title, I did remember thinking it was one of the funniest movies I had ever seen. So, when I had an opportunity to watch it again at lunch earlier today, I did just that and discovered, while a bit dated, the film is still pretty funny.

The Wayan Brothers are known for making spoof movies and, next to Scary Movie, I think this one is easily their best. The film does a great job making fun of the many infamous “blaxploitation” movies that are out there while, at the same time, still being a relatively entertaining movie by itself.

I personally love the fact the movie decided to take things to a new level and, instead of having the neighborhood youth being poisoned by drugs, focusing on the gold chains they wear. This allowed the film to have some hilarious visual jokes and made it easy to keep a light-hearted spirit to the movie, something that would have been harder to do if it would have had something more realistic, like cocaine or heroin.

There’s also a good blend of comedy in this film ranging from some entertaining sight gags to some funny one-liners. In fact, I think this is a smarter comedy than some of their later movies, which had a much heavier focus on crude jokes and plots that were a bit simpler.

The decision to use Bernie Casey in a role that was similar to his Shaft character was fantastic. Even though he was obviously older, the similarities were still there and worked really well with the overall theme of the film. Not to mention the fact Casey (as well as Brown and Hayes) provided the cast with a veteran supporting actor to the relatively (at least at the time) inexperienced Wayans and I’m not sure if the movie would have been anywhere near as good without him giving it a little more credibility.

I think my only real complaint about this movie is it would have been fun to see more of the other Wayan Brothers. Marlon, Shawn and Kim all had cameos. But, I think it might have been better if they had a much more active role in the film, even if it was as bad guys.

Final Opinion: As I said before, some of the material is a little dated (and that could be intentional) but, overall, this movie is a fun film to watch and easily one of the Wayan Brothers’ best cinematic attempts.

My Grade: B