From the Vault: Coffy

This review of the Pam Grier Blaxploitation classic Coffy first appeared six years ago in slightly different form at my old blog.

“She’s the Godmother of them all … the baddest one-chick hit squad that ever hit town!”

“They call her Coffy and she’ll cream you!”

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Starring in Jack Hill’s exploitation classic Coffy (1973) effectively established Pam Grier as the most badass woman of 1970s cinema. She’d already staked her claim in previous films, but with Coffy Grier cemented her eternal icon status. The story of a nurse by day, vigilante justice seeker by night, Coffy allowed Grier ample opportunities to show off her, um, ample assets, both as an action star and as the owner of one of the most bodacious bodies in cinema. That body is certainly on full display throughout Coffy.

Quentin Tarantino famously loves Grier so much—often listing Coffy as one of his favorite films—that he built the love letter Jackie Brown (my favorite film of his) around her talents. He even cast her Coffy costar Sid Haig in a knowing nod to their past genre glories. It’s no surprise QT and the rest of us fell hard for Grier in Coffy; she’s absurdly charismatic as the titular character. Seeking revenge on the heroin dealers who hooked her sister on smack, Coffy is just what the tagline says: a one-chick hit squad, creaming one misogynist slimeball after another.

The power of the film’s anti-drug message lies in just how pervasive the problem was (and is) in America. It’s not just pushers and pimps that Coffy has to contend with, but also politicians taking a hard stance on the heroin scourge in public, while secretly lining their pockets with a cut from drug sales. Coffy is relentless, using sex to seduce these slimeballs, before exacting brutal revenge, usually via shotgun blasts to the head, chest, or for one unlucky chap, the groin.

Hill ends the film with a moment of pure melancholy which perfectly captures the human toll Coffy’s mission takes on her: she’s killed everyone she set out to kill, and a few more for good measure, but now what? The final shot of a solemn Grier walking along the beach at dusk, as the credits roll, underscores just how empty her revenge mission has left her.

Coffy stands as the purest distillation of the reasons why Pam Grier is revered as the badass woman of 1970s cinema—and beyond, really. Whether playing a drugged out whore to infiltrate the inner sanctum of one pusher after another, or going full-on kamikaze action star, Grier is electrifying. Even the requisite girl-on-girl catfight, while hilariously cliche, is a stunning showcase for Grier’s power as a woman of action. It’s not just a fight, but a several-minutes long, knock-down, drag-out brawl, with Grier taking on one rampaging prostitute after another, as party onlookers (mostly salivating men, standing in for Grier’s fans) look on with awe. Over the course of her career, and especially with Jackie Brown, Grier extended and refined her acting range, but with Coffy she crafted a defining performance that remains as thrilling and invigorating to watch today as it must have been for grindhouse audiences back in 1973.