Coffy
Coffy is a 1973 American blaxploitation film written and directed by American filmmaker Jack Hill. The story is about a black female vigilante played by Pam Grier who seeks violent revenge against a heroin dealer responsible for her sister's addiction. The film's tagline in advertising was "They call her 'Coffy' and she'll you!" Plot. A nurse, named Flower Child Coffin but usually referred to as 'Coffy', seeks revenge against the people responsible for her younger sister Lubelle's heroin addiction and the widespread violence in her city. Under the guise of a prostitute willing to do  anything for a drug fix, she lures a drug pusher and a mob boss to their residences, killing them. After the killings, Coffy returns to her job at a local hospital operating room. After her shift, Coffy's police friend Carter offers to drive her home. Carter is a straight-shooting officer who is not willing to bend the law for the mob or the thugs who have been bribing officers at his precinct. Coffy doesn't believe his strong moral resolve until two hooded men break into Carter's house while she's visiting him and beat Carter, crippling  him. This enrages Coffy, giving her further provocation to continue her work as a vigilante, killing those responsible for harming Carter and her sister. Coffy's boyfriend, Howard Brunswick, is a city councilman. Coffy admires Brunswick for his contributions to the community. Brunswick announces his plan to run for Congress and his purchase of a night club. Coffy's next targets are a pimp named King George, one of the largest suppliers of prostitutes and illegal drugs in the city, and Mafia boss Arturo Vitroni, a criminal associate of George's. Coffy questions a former patient, a known drug user , to gain insight into the type of woman King George likes and where he keeps his stash of drugs. Coffy shows no sympathy for the drug-addled woman and abuses her as she looks for answers. With the information she gets from the woman, Coffy tracks down George and poses as a Jamaican woman looking to trick for him. George, immediately interested in her exotic nature, hires her. One of the prostitutes becomes jealous. Later that day, Coffy and the other prostitutes get into a massive brawl. Coffy wins, which attracts mob boss Vitroni, who demands to have her that  night. Coffy plans to murder Vitroni, but before she can shoot him, his men overtake her. She lies and tells Vitroni that King George ordered her to kill him, which makes Vitroni order George to be murdered. Vitroni's men kill George by lynching him by the neck from his car, which they drive through an open field. Coffy then discovers Brunswick, her clean-cut boyfriend, is corrupt when she's shown to him at a meeting of the mob and several police officials. He denies knowing her other than as a prostitute, and Coffy is sent to her death . Coffy seduces her would-be killers. They try injecting her with drugs to sedate her, but she had replaced the illicit drugs with a sugar solution earlier. Faking a high, she kills her unsuspecting hitman with a pointed metal wire she fashioned herself and hid in her hair, by stabbing him in the jugular vein. Running to avoid capture, Coffy carjacks a vehicle to escape. Coffy drives to Vitroni's house, murders him, and then goes to Brunswick's to do the same. He pleads for forgiveness and just as she is about to accept, a naked white woman comes  out of his bedroom. Coffy shoots Brunswick in the groin with a shotgun, emasculating and killing him. Later, Coffy walks along the beach having avenged her sister. Production. According to writer/director Hill, the project began when American International Pictures' head of production, Larry Gordon, lost the rights to the film "Cleopatra Jones" after making a handshake deal with the producers. Gordon subsequently approached Hill to quickly make a movie about an African-American woman's revenge and beat "Cleopatra Jones" to market. Hill wanted to work with Pam Grier, whom he had worked with on "The Big Doll House  (1971). The film ended up earning more money than Cleopatra Jones" and established Grier as an icon of the genre. "Coffy" is notable in its depiction of a strong black female lead (a professional nurse), something rare in the genre at the time, and also in its then-unfashionable anti-drug message. Reception. The movie received a mixed reception. Karen Ross wrote that it "let black audiences enjoy the sight of heroes kicking the white system and winning even while condemning the violence and recognized the implausibility. It allowed blacks the ultimate escape to cheer on the heroine that fought  corruption and crime and then leave the theatre to be blighted by the racism in society." "Variety" wrote, "Jack Hill, who wrote and directs with an action-atuned hand, inserts plenty of realism in footage in which Pam Grier in title role ably acquits herself." Roger Ebert gave the film two stars out of four, praising the film for its believable female lead and noting that Grier was an actress of "beautiful face and astonishing form" and that she possessed a kind of "physical life" missing from many other attractive actresses. Gene Siskel gave the film zero stars out of  four and called it "a stupid movie" with a "wooden performance" from Grier. Fredric Milstein called it "very well-made, very filthy and obscenely violent," adding that director Hill "elicits convincing, interesting performances from everybody except Miss Grier, who reads her lines rather stiffly and childishly and who shouldn't be able to fool anyone — especially not the Prince of Pushers — with that phony Jamaican accent she uses when she goes undercover." Grier subsequently played similar characters in the AIP films "Foxy Brown" (1974), "Friday Foster", and "Sheba, Baby" (both 1975). The film is a favourite of Quentin Tarantino, and  he ranks it high among his top 20 best films. He later hired Grier for "Jackie Brown" in 1997, a film with clear inspiration from films like "Coffy" and "Foxy Brown". Tarantino said of the film poster: "Not only is it a great image of Pam Grier, it's got great type — it's the epitome of a great exploitation poster...and every version of it in foreign countries rocked." By 1976 "Variety" estimated the film had earned $4 million in rentals. The film is recognized by American Film Institute in these lists: Canceled sequel. Due to sequels performing  poorly at the box-office, the sequel to "Coffy" (known as "Burn Coffy Burn") was scrapped and replaced with "Foxy Brown".