Teringer An Exercise In Nonsense

RipDelight This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Aspen Orson There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

Leofwine_draca THE BARON is a low budget and somewhat grainy addition to the blaxploitation genre featuring a leading role for actor Calvin Lockhart (someone I best know for his turn in THE BEAST MUST DIE as well as his bit part in PREDATOR 2). It's rather a forgotten and inconsequential film, containing as it does not much in the way of action but instead focusing on the intricacies of the plotting.The story sees Lockhart's character attempting to make his own blaxploitation movie, but turning to a mobster loan shark when he runs out of funds. Various bad guys then pursue him, chief of whom is the excellent Richard Lynch, here displaying all of his trademark sliminess and villainy even at this early stage of his career. Lockhart has more charisma than muscle, but the bits with Lynch are a hoot as he steals every scene, and that bit in the restaurant is great.

Woodyanders Calivin Lockhart gives an excellent and affable performance as the Baron, an idealistic and impractical independent filmmaker who's struggling to get his first completed movie distributed. Calvin's a starry-eyed, woolly-headed dreamer with delusions of grandeur who gets a painful and jarring crash course in brutal, sordid reality when one of his financiers, a vulgar and flamboyant dope dealer called the Cokeman (a superbly cool and sweetly villainous turn by Charles MacGregor), demands that Calvin immediately cough up the $300 grand the Cokeman lent to him for his picture. The Cokeman desperately needs the dough to pay off a debt he owes to mean, racist, neurotic, homophobic and highly image conscious bon vivant loan shark Joey (veteran bad guy character actor Richard Lynch in peak scurvy form). Hard up for cash, Lockhart is forced to turn tricks as a gigolo, with his prize customers being wealthy elderly widow Joan Blondell and affluent, married young tease Caroline (the lovely Marlene Clark). Under Phillip Fenty's able, assured direction (Fenty also wrote the unusually thoughtful script and previously penned the screenplay for "Superfly"), this offbeat and interesting feature does an equally adept job as both a taut, gripping down and dirty crime flick and a trenchant, absorbing examination on the difference between dreams and reality, how far one is willing to go to make one's dreams come true, the desire to have control over your life, and the powerful need to be a success on your own terms. The catchy, funky, groovy soundtrack, uniformly top-notch acting (Lynch, decked out in flashy white suits and a snazzy top hat, especially shines as the eminently hateful and manipulative main bastard heavy), a sharply delineated contrast between the cold harshness of life on the streets and the lazy, decadent opulence of the high life, and the compelling, thematically rich narrative further enhance this film's overall sound quality. Although sometimes a bit slow and pretentious, "The Baron" still warrants praise as an ambitious, intriguing, uncommonly reflective and refreshingly unconventional existential thinking man's blaxploitation gangster sleeper.

John Seal Calvin Lockhart is The Baron, a struggling African-American filmmaker trying to get his big break. He gets mixed up with some dirty money and ends up confronting the usual mafia guys trying to keep a brutha down. They're a particularly nasty lot in this one, especially the racist, misogynistic, and homophobic Joey, played here flamboyantly by exploitation regular Richard Lynch. The film is a reasonably enjoyable blend of action and social commentary, and features a terrific score by Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson. Joan Blondell, Raymond St. Jacques, and Marlene Clark are all wasted or underutilised, but Lockhart is good (as usual), even when burdened with some truly horrible 70s fashions.

melissa The Baron puts a unique spin on the typical 70s Blaxploitation shoot-em-up flick. Calvin Lockheart (who you may remember as a guest star on Good Times playing Florida's gambling cousin Raymond), plays an aspiring movie actor/producer/filmmaker who must turn to the underworld (and becoming some old lady's "Hot Dog") in order to raise money to make his film. And he must pay back his investors before someone gets hurt.What Lockheart lacks in brawn (which seemed to be required for male leads in 70s black cinema -- i.e. Richard Roundtree, Jim Brown, Fred Williamson, etc.), he makes up in character and charm as he "battles" the gangsters in order to give life on screen to "The Baron." And while there are fewer "battles" than a typical Blaxploitation action movie (This film is more drama than action.), the ones that are shown are even more convincing since they're not the usual quick-n-dirty gun battles that we Blaxploitation fans have seen over and over.Plenty of suspense, exciting action, good editing, solid acting, interesting storyline, and a groovy soundtrack by Gil Scott-Heron and Brian Jackson make _The Baron_ a great rental choice when you're looking for some cool 70s black cinema. Especially if you're looking for something different from the same ole shoot 'em up/karate chop Blaxploitation film.