Coffy

Plot synopsis:
In a crowded nightclub, a well-known drug pusher is enjoying an evening out with several female companions. One of his junkie henchmen approaches him and tells him that he's driving the pusher's car, and he's brought him a young woman who is willing to do
anything to get some drugs. The pusher is angry until
he sees the person in the car, a beautiful woman who
returns with him to a shabby apartment. Just when it
seems like they are going to have sex, the woman pulls
a severely sawed-off shotgun out of her macrame purse
and blasts the dealer's head off. The henchman, who
is in the other room shooting up, is confronted by the
woman, who tells him her last name is Coffin, and that
her sister is LuBelle Coffin. LuBelle is now in a
hospital, having shot up with tainted heroin, and her
mind is permanently damaged. The enraged woman forces
the man to take another hit of heroin, which kills
him.The woman is known to her friends and associates as
Coffy (Pam Grier), a nurse at a city hospital. Coffy has a romance with political hopeful Howard Brunswick (Booker Bradshaw), but she is devoted to caring for her sister. She gets news of her "hit" from Carter (William Elliott), a policeman friend of hers. Carter is a good cop who refuses to take payoffs from local mobster Arturo Vitroni (Allan Arbus), and as a result, Vitroni sends his henchmen to knock Carter around. Coffy happens to be in the way at the time, and both of them wind up in the hospital. Coffy is little more than shaken, but Carter is beaten unconscious and seriously injured.More angry than ever, Coffy sets out to stop the mobsters once and for all. She learns of a pusher named King George (Robert DoQui) who is supplying heroin to local dealers. George is also a well-known pimp; Coffy is vaguely familiar with George because one of his prostitutes, Priscilla (Carol Locatell), once came to Coffy's hospital after George cut her face. Coffy visits Priscilla at her home and leans on her for information about George and his business practices. Priscilla tells Coffy about Arturo Vitroni and how he is one of George's best clients. Vitroni apparently likes to treat his hookers cruelly, humiliating them and making them do degrading things for his pleasure. Priscilla balks when Coffy asks her where George keeps his stash; she is afraid that if she tells Coffy this, George will find out and kill her, so she pulls a knife on Coffy and tries to frighten her off. Instead, Coffy turns violent, shattering a wine bottle and threatening Priscilla with the jagged edge. Priscilla tells Coffy that George keeps his heroin stash in a box under his fireplace. Just then, Priscilla's tough lesbian pimp, Harriet (Dea St. Lamont), returns and fights with Coffy, who just barely escapes.With the information she got from Priscilla, Coffy sets out to infiltrate George's business. She sets up a meeting with King George and pretends to be a Jamaican hooker named Mystique. George immediately takes her into his fold, much to the chagrin of George's 'old lady', Meg (Linda Haynes). During a party at George's pad, the jealous Meg dumps a tray of cocktails in Coffy's lap. When she goes into George's bedroom to clean up, Coffy sees her opportunity and accesses his drug stash, disposing of all his heroin and replacing it with ordinary sugar. Returning to the party, she then picks a fight with Meg and winds up fending off Meg and the rest of the girls. Coffy emerges the victor when Meg cuts herself on a series of razorblades that Coffy has hidden in her afro. Arturo Vitroni witnesses the fight, and he so taken by Coffy that he requests a session with her that very night.Coffy arrives at Vitroni's house and attempts to assassinate him, but she is stopped by Omar (Sid Haig), Arturo's bodyguard. They make the mistake of believing that King George has sent Coffy to make a hit on Arturo, so they retaliate. Keeping Coffy locked up, they lure George into a limousine and then kill him by tying a rope around him and dragging him behind the vehicle.They are undecided about what to do with Coffy. One of Vitroni's goons recognizes Coffy from the night they roughed her up along with Carter; another of Virtoni's shady associates recognizes Coffy as Howard Brunswick's girlfriend. Believing her to be a hit woman, the gangsters summon Brunswick, unsure about whether he is associated with Coffy's attempted hit. Vitroni is suspicious when he realizes that Coffy and Howard do indeed know one another, but Coffy insists Howard had nothing to do with her attempt on Vitroni's life, blaming it entirely on King George. To her dismay, Howard betrays Coffy and tells Vitroni that for all he cares, they can kill her.Omar and some other goons take Coffy to a desolate area of the city with intentions of killing her and dumping the body. Along the way they inject her with some heroin they took from King George's stash--Coffy knows it's really just sugar. She distracts them with her feminine wiles and manages to stab Omar in the throat, mortally wounding him. Another goon chases Coffy out onto a busy freeway, where he is run down by a passing vehicle. The third goon, a crooked cop, tries to run Coffy down after chasing her under a bridge, but she shatters his windshield with a brick and he flips the car. Coffy steals his shotgun just before the car explodes, killing him.Coffy stashes her shotgun and hitches a ride with a stranger, luring him out of the car and stealing it once he's gone. She returns to her hiding place and retrieves the shotgun, then returns to Vitroni's and drives the car straight into the house, killing one goon who was standing on the porch. Inside she lets loose with her shotgun, killing everyone she sees until she has Vitroni cornered in a swimming pool. She toys with him and tells him she'll take a million dollar payoff to let him live, but after he tells her where Brunswick went, she shoots him anyway.Coffy's revenge isn't complete until she pays a visit to Howard. She slips into his beach house and surprises him, holding the shotgun on him. Howard is shocked to see Coffy alive, and even more shocked to hear that she's killed all of his shady associates. Howard manages to sooth Coffy, convincing her that he was only playing along with the crooks to buy time. But his speech is interrupted by a woman calling for him from upstairs; a semi-nude white woman walks out of one of the bedrooms. Coffy responds by gunning down Howard right there in his living room, as the terrified woman screams in horror. Coffy then stumbles out into the morning light, grimy and covered with bloody scratches and bruises, but alive.

Tags: dark, cruelty, murder, neo noir, cult, sadist, violence, action, romantic, revenge, blaxploitation

Review:
Pam Grier made many movies in the 1970s, but 'Coffy' as much as anything, is the one role on which her reputation as the Queen of blaxploitation rests.
Then Hill wrote and directed 'Coffy', a hugely entertaining revenge thriller that really showcases Pam Grier's talent and charisma to the max.
Instead of a female James Bond character like Cleopatra Jones, Hill made Coffy a regular working class black woman (a nurse as a matter of fact), who must use her brains and looks to achieve her goal - revenge for the drug addiction of her kid sister.
The movie crosses elements seen in the male blaxploitation classics of the period like 'Superfly' and 'Shaft' with the vigilante genre which would really kick off with the success of 'Death Wish' the following year (yup, 'Coffy' PREDATES 'Death Wish', so let's get that straight).
Grier went on to movies like 'The Arena', 'Sheba, Baby' and 'Drum' before the blaxploitation boom burst, but it's a pity that she only made one more movie with Jack Hill ('Foxy Brown') because they were a dynamite team bringing out the best in each other.
'Coffy' has some interesting supporting cast members including Allan Arbus (best know to fans of TV's 'M.A.S.H.') as Mob boss Vitroni, future 'Robocop' actor Robert DoQui as flamboyant pimp King George, and the brilliant Sid Haig as the sleazy Omar.
Coffy offing a drug pusher in the first few minutes, having a touching family moment, fighting a room full of women that results in everyone's top being janked off, some bad guys nuts getting blown off (literally, not figuratively), and, of course, Pam trading blows with at least 2 lesbians at once.
if you've always wondered what was so great about Pam Grier, and haven't seen any of her movies from the seventies, look no further than Coffy.
Quentin Tarantino's fixation with Pam Grier, the star of Coffy, resulted in him casting her as the lead in his 1997 movie Jackie Brown; QT's worship of the actress really comes as no surprise—she's a B-movie nerd's wet dream come true, a foxy, feisty, take-no-crap bad-ass mama with a body to die for.
Grier's unforgettable performance, along with no-nonsense direction from Jack Hill and an excellent supporting cast (including Hill regular Sid Haig) ensure that Coffy is not only one of the best blaxploitation films ever, but also one of the best exploitation films of any type, period.The film combines all the trappings one expects from a pimped-out early 70s revenge thriller aimed primarily at a black audience—big afros (so handy for hiding weapons in), cool music, loud suits, wide ties, flares, pimps, hos, and drug dealers—along with the regular gratuitous violence and nudity one would hope to find in a standard low-budget grindhouse style flick of the era.
The nerve-straining and tame political correctness of "Friday Foster" is fortunately totally missing, because "Coffy" follows straight up to some unwritten genre laws: the white are the bad guys, black ones the good - that´s how the rules of blaxploitation normally function!
Sometimes the film reminded me on Michael Winner´s "Death Wish", however Charles Bronson is a little milk boy in comparison to the tough and sexy Coffy: Pam shows her breasts every five minutes and when she doesn´t she kills a dozens of people instead.
Aside from Tarantino's Jackie Brown (of which not only did that filmmaker take license with the 'take no prisoners' style of Grier, but the best musical pieces as well), this is Pam Grier's finest turn in what some consider in the exploitation-movie world as the first 'black-exploitation' classic.
While to be sure the film depicts some of the black characters with their flamboyant clothing (including things that are pretty funny today like King George's cape and one-piece suit with emblem), and it also keeps to the quasi-tenement of this wave of movies where practically all of the white characters are real drug kingpins or bad gangsters, there's the fact that Grier's character- through crime and revenge and all- is just trying, in her mind, to do the best thing possible.
But then again, to take such a story to heart would be missing the point writer/director Hill is after.Because for its main center of a message, that pushing drugs on people who don't know any better (or do) is wrong to the point of having to take personal action (or standing up for the rights), this is not at all a preachy movie.
Right from the start where the guy's head gets blown off, it only gets better with a logic that works like such- the more over-the-top, the better, the more stylish its more appealing, and for every ham-bone acting performance (albeit with a great deal of talent) there's an exciting action scene or fight.
If for no other reason, Grier makes Coffy still something to check out 30-something years later, and more than just a curio for Jackie Brown fans looking for the roots of that film's success.
When her addicted sister is hospitalized victim of drugs, the nurse Coffy (Pam Grier) seeks revenge and kills the drug dealer.
Pam Grier performs the black vigilante Coffy in an attempt to turn her into an action actress.
Any way, I enjoyed this movie and recommend this film if you want to see some great action and one great looking woman with a pretty great plot, great music sound track and one fantastic looking female lead character..
Coffy is a superior Pam Grier movie (far superior to Sheba-Baby) and one that typifies the best of blaxsploitation.
Pam Grier plays a nurse named Coffy who goes undercover to take out the drug dealers who got her sister hooked.
Pam Grier stars as the title character.The plot: Coffy is just a mild mannered nurse, but then her sister gets mixed with the drug trade and is hospitalized for contaminated heroin.
She turns vigilante and vows to take down all the drug pushers and pimps.Like "Foxy Brown", Pam Grier is at her best here.
Jack Hill's "Coffy" of 1973 starring the great Pam Grier could well be considered THE most important and coolest Blaxploitation classic out there.
Pam Grier, one of my personal favorite actresses of all-time, plays her coolest role, as the super-sexy, super-cool lady-avenger Coffy, the "Baddest one-chick hit-squad that ever hit town", as the tagline promises.The eponymous heroine, Coffy, is a nurse who gets vengeful, after her kid sister is hospitalized with an overdose of contaminated heroin.
Coffy decides to clear her neighborhood of drugs vigilante-style, using both her sexy body, her clever mind, and merciless, brutal violence...As mentioned above, Pam Grier is, cool, sexy and just amazing as the heroine, maybe THE role that earned her the deserved reputation as an absolute cult-heroine.
Exploitation cult-badass Sid Haig who had already starred aside Pam Grier three times, in director Jack Hill'S very own WIP flicks "The Big Doll House" (1971) and "The Big Bird Cage" (1972), as well as in Eddie Romero's "Black Mama, White Mama" (1972), also plays a smaller role in this movie.I don't want to give too much of the plot away, but I can guarantee that any fan of cool 70s cinema is gonna love "Coffy".
This movie has everything a blaxploitation flick calls for - lots of action, brutal violence, a fair amount of nudity and sleaze, funky 70s music, some of the coolest urban slang lines ever, and, above all, the greatest blaxploitation heroine ever, played by the genre's greatest star, the beautiful and incomparable Pam Grier.
The legendary Pam Grier stars as Coffy, a nurse whose young sister has fallen victim to drug abuse.
After seeing Quentin Tarantino's JACKIE BROWN (my favorite of all his films), I knew I had to seek out more Pam Grier.
Director Jack Hill puts his regular Sid Haig to good use as a Russian henchman who drags a pimp to his death.I can't recommend COFFY enough, especially to those who haven't discovered Pam Grier yet or want a smooth excursion into blaxploitation cinema.
Pam Grier sets the screen on fire as Coffy, a working class black woman(a nurse) who is on a mission to take down the drug syndicate due to her kid sister's life is ruined by drugs.
However, it is not quite as well made as this is and Coffy by far is Pam Grier's best film and essential watching for fans of 70's action cinema..
A nurse named Coffin (Pam Grier) takes vigilante justice against inner-city drug dealers after her sister becomes their latest victim.Apparently, American International approached director Jack Hill to quickly make a movie about an African American woman's revenge and beat "Cleopatra Jones" to market.
The film ended up earning more money than "Cleopatra Jones" and established Grier as an icon of the genre.Now, we might ask how Hill -- a white man -- ended up doing blaxploitation cinema.
This is the kind of flick that's gonna make you wanna scream F***ING A!!Coffy is a feme blaxploitation flick .while many of u have probably seen foxy brown (another Pam Grier-Jack Hill combo   classic) ,which is a very fun film on it's on, it doesn't come close to this one..
But the main reason why this movie  kicked  so much ass as it did is the wonderful Ms. Pam Grier's  performances as Coffy.
Pam Grier stars in the title role, that of a nurse who becomes a one-woman vigilante after drug-dealing thugs make Coffy's little sister a junkie.
Over the course of my cinematic love affair, I have really enjoyed the few films I have seen, either starring Pam Grier, one of my favourite B-movie American actresses, or that were directed by Jack Hill.
It's no accident that Quentin Tarantino cites "Coffy" as one of his favorite movies, and he of course later cast Pam Grier in "Jackie Brown".
Foxy Brown, the unofficial sequel to Coffy, might be slightly better known thanks to Quentin Tarantino's reference-tastic Jackie Brown (also starring Pam Grier), but it can't hold a candle to this Blaxploitation classic.
But Grier, or perhaps, writer/director Jack Hill, in an honorably feminist mood, asked a question most left untouched: what would happen if the woman saved the day, and didn't need a man to survive in a cold, hard world of drugs, cash, and hookers?As "Coffy" opens, its titular matron is p-ssed.
One of Quentin Tarantino's favourite grindhouse movies, Coffy is a great example of blaxploitation film – a genre that emerged in the USA in the 1970s, created specifically for black people, that featured black casts and funk and soul soundtracks.
And it is Coffy – or better, Pam Grier – who leads the movie.
Also, her relationship with her sister isn't developed at all, but we still take her (Coffy's) side in her fighting the drug bosses, again because of her amazing performance.Of course, this isn't an excellent movie, but you shouldn't expect much from the exploitation genre.
It's just meant to entertain: it makes people laugh – like in this movie, when Coffy gets in a fight with some hookers and throws a bowl of salad onto one girl's head -, shocks – the best example being the killing of a man by tying a noose around his neck, attaching the rope to a car and dragging him around town -, and features a lot of female nudity; but it has many flaws – to give just one example, some of the supporting actors' performances are bad, but in a funny way, and the movie is sometimes boring.
Since impressing writer/director Jack Hill in his two previous films (The Big Doll House (1971) and The Big Bird Cage (1972)), the buxom and beautiful Pam Grier takes centre stage in this violent anti-drug vigilante drama.
Grier plays a no-holds-barred nurse, known by many as Coffy, whose younger sister has been brought into the world of drugs, and is in hospital after being sold some "bad stuff".
This leads to a quite graphic scene in which Coffy blows the head off a dealer with a shotgun.Within an exploitation industry that played very much within the confines of misogyny, this particular blaxploitation film offers a more feminist approach to the subject.
I was pleasantly surprised with how much I liked Coffy.Pam Grier is a strong female lead during a time when strong female leads were rare, especially in the blaxploitation era.
Coffy stars Pam Grier (who later was casted in Jackie Brown by Quentin Tarantino, who's a big fan of her) ...
The beautiful Pam Grier stars as Coffy, a nurse out for revenge against the dope dealers who got her lil' sis addicted to smack...by posing as a call girl for a pimp named King George("Geroge...!
I'd say, except for the scene at King George's office and a few shots of, I must say, Pam Grier's AMAZING....uh,lungs, this plays like a pretty good television drama.
Sympathy for a stone cold killer like Coffy comes surprisingly easy, since the only people she's setting up and bumping off are lowlifes like King George, and a two faced black governatorial candidate(a genuinely great performance).The ending is a bit abrupt, but that was the case for a lot of seventies era movies.
All things considered, I don't think you can wrong with..."COFFY!" As the ads say:"She has a body most men would die for...and lately, THEY HAVE!" Have fun, and don't forget to pick up Pam Grier's other classic "Foxy Brown".TRIVIA: The soundtrack for this movie is sampled throughout Jackie Brown.
It would be surprising to see Sid Haig steal the movie just for dragging the poor guy out on the road, however Grier's last-minute revenge saves the film entirely.
It doesn't really justify all the nudity but when it is Pam Grier I think it tends to justify itself.She is not a great actress and she shows it here; whenever she is given a scene where the centre is Coffy's centre, she doesn't really convince.
CoffyToday, the only way to tell if a woman is mad is if she is constantly rolling her eyes.In the 1970s, however, angry women, like the one in this action movie, carried a shotgun.Already sick of the filth corrupting her city and filling her OR, nurse Coffy (Pam Grier) hits her boiling point when her sister ends up in the morgue due to an overdose.Posing as a prostitute, Coffy positions herself next to drug dealers, pimps and the mafia, whom she pits against one another in a series of strategic hits.
Robert DoQui has a whale of a time as the super-pimp King George and Sidney Haig is sleazy henchman with the hots for Coffy.The film might now look dated yet its oddly progressive.
Like in her other films, Pam outshines the other characters, in Coffy.
If you like Pam Grier, you're better off seeing her other films, like Foxy Brown, or perhaps Friday Foster.
Pam's characters in her other Blaxploitation films, don't stoop as low to get revenge, as Coffy did.
I'd say, only watch Coffy, if you're unable to see any of Pam Grier's other films.
It's a foxy and fun film oozing with cheesiness and greatness, topped with Pam Grier's fabulous performance.
The biggest ones, of course, belong to Pam Grier, the Best of the Breast.Of course, there is also Lisa Farringer in her only nude scene that I am aware of in her too short 10 year career.There is a story here, too, as Coffy seeks to take revenge on all the dope-pushing scumbags that were responsible for her little sister getting hooked.
It's like a comic book come to life.Pam Grier plays Coffy, a nurse who goes on a murderous rampage after her sister overdoses on drugs supplied by a "pusher" who knows that Coffy is sending her money.
Pam Grier's first "blaxploitation" film is far from her best, but it does show you why she became the "queen" of that genre--there simply just wasn't anyone else like her.
Several of her subsequent films in this genre are much better than this one, but this will serve as a good introduction to "the Pam Grier experience".
It is apparent after watching this film that no one remembers this for the bad-acting and dialogue, but for Pam Grier herself as a mean mutha who can kick some a$$ when she has to!This movie SCREAMS 'early 70's', from the afro wigs to the awesome outfits Coffy finds herself wearing whether it be at a gala for call girls or when she's undercover to kick some drug-dealer's nasty behind!This brilliant film mixes comedy right in there with the action.
If you like vigilante films even a little, you'll love this one, as Pam Grier's one-woman killing machine takes down an entire drug syndicate to avenge her sister's drug abuse.
Grier gives a gutsy performance and the supporting cast includes William Elliott as a good cop, Booker Bradshaw as very bad politician as well as Robert DoQui as "King George," a very flamboyant and very badly dressed drug pusher/pimp.
Coffy is a little more serious in tone that some of the Grier's other films like Foxy Brown and, because of that, I don't enjoy it as much.
Coffy (Pam Grier) is a nurse who joins the mob as King George's (Robert DoQui) girlfriend as she enacts revenge against drug dealers whose victims she treats, including her sister.King George appears on the scene looking like Dolemite.
Coffy (Pam Grier) is a nurse who wants revenge against the drug dealers who doped her little sister.
The plot is simple but very good, but definitely the best part of the film is the character of Coffy played in a great and very sexy way by Pam Grier.
This is a film you can enjoy but it still is essentially a stupid movie with practically no redeeming value.By the way, Pam Grier made three very, very similar movies in successive years--COFFY(1973), FOXY BROWN (1974) and SHEBA BABY (1975).