I actually dug up Mister Kilmer to watch this movie with me, and that’s what he said to me when it was all over, word for word. I have to say I agree with the famed poet of “Trees” on this one. Oh, and despite being dead for almost 90 years, that man can still down a line of Wild Turkey shots and conquer the world’s deadliest limbo pole like nobody’s fucking business.

Unlike my usual approach to reviewing a movie, I’m going to give you the synopsis I was given first. Then, I’ll put my “bloodyin’ shoes” on and we can go from there.

Jive Turkey - It’s a turf battle over the mean streets of Harlem between Italian mobsters and the black hoodlums living in the neighborhood. The fighting becomes intense, as each side tries to push the other out, with both groups bringing in their best hit men. Watch for a brutal transvestite mobster who kills with their high-heeled shoes and Frank DeKova from TV’s F-Troop as the leader of the Italian mob.

Okay, aside from shining my shoes up real nice so I can stick ‘em sideways up the ass of the evil bastardo that wrote that, I’m going to break it down piece by piece for you and explain why it’s the most misleading statement since George W. Bush vowed he would serve the interests of the people of the United States of America during his inauguration.

“ It’s a turf battle over the mean streets of Harlem between Italian mobsters and the black hoodlums living in the neighborhood.” – First things first, this isn’t about “turf”. Italian mob boss Big Tony (that’s right, the world’s most uninspired writers worked on this piece of shit, bringing us the 7 millionth instance of a mob guy named “Big Tony” who might as well just go by the moniker “Big Stupid Italian Stereotype”) isn’t looking to take over black kingpin Hakeem Pasha’s turf. The movie starts off with Tony telling Mr. P (the two of which apparently grew up together) that the mafia wants to take over his gambling racket. Not content with controlling the drug operations in the neighborhood, they also want to take in the cash from the ol’ “numbers racket” while they’re at it, leaving the prostitution to Pasha and pals. Pasha’s more than welcome to stay in the area, but he chooses to push back and won’t change his name to “Toby” for no pushy stereotype from the old country. I could be wrong though and all that “turf battle” shit could indeed be going on in Harlem, because what he have here ain’t the infamous New York City area known as Harlem by any means… unless they’re referring to a lesser-known small town in Georgia that also happens to be called Harlem, in which case I might be inclined to believe.

“ The fighting becomes intense, as each side tries to push the other out, with both groups bringing in their best hit men.” – I don’t know what movie this jerk-off was watching, but I’ve seen more intense fighting by those goofy queefs who play out real life Dungeons & Dragons games in public parks on the weekends. The extent of the movie’s “intense fighting” involves a few random scenes of people shooting at each other, a car chase and the occasional gut bustingly bad fight sequence. Most of the time we’re just following Pasha around in his daily duties of settling disagreements between his “employees”, picking up money from people, checking in on his whores, rolling around in bed with his sweaty wife, and talking to people on the phone. If watching Pasha talk to his lawyer and chatting with his doorman is “intense”, then this movie’s got it in spades… uhm, racist pun not intended… seriously, that didn’t… uhm… moving on!

As far as the “their best hit men” comment goes, again, the majority of the movie consists of Pasha plodding through various disjointed scenes of talking to people and driving around. There might’ve been a couple of hit men involved at points of the movie, but they either pop in for a brief sequence where they screw up, get shot, and drive away never to be seen again or they wind up getting killed by the assassin transvestite before actually doing anything. More on that part later, but when I see someone talking about “their best hit men”, I expect to see some colorful characters with unbelievable back stories that would make the guys who come up with professional wrestler characters drop their jaws to the floor and stammer out, “Wha?!”. You know, something like the following: “This guy is known as Quiet Grizzly: his crack addicted prostitute mother cut out his vocal chords when he was 4 so he never says a word and he got that giant scar on his face from strangling a bear with his bare hands when he was 12. He was sentenced to death in a Portuguese prison for killing and raping an entire office of government officials, but fought his way to freedom with nothing but a bedpan and a shiv made of a toothbrush and a nail clipping from his big toe. 12 guards were killed and 47 were horribly mutilated and left to live. Rumor has it he killed a great white and used it’d carcass as a canoe, paddling his way to the US to make a new life for himself doing the only thing he’s ever known: killing”. You get the idea.

“ Watch for a brutal transvestite mobster who kills with their high-heeled shoes and Frank DeKova from TV’s F-Troop as the leader of the Italian mob.” – As far as the transvestite goes, said she-man goes by the name Serene and is not under the employ of the not-as-large-as-his-name-would-imply “Big Tony”, but instead works for Pasha Spice for the entire running time of the movie. On top of that, don’t get too excited about the Hermi Serene’s high-heeled shoes attack like he-she’s the ghetto Odd Job either. The incident in question actually plays out like such: Serene picks up two guys in a bar (I think they’re supposed to be hit men hired by Tony Tony Tony) who shouldn’t have bought their tranny radars at the Salvation Army. Serene gets ‘em both drunk, takes ‘em back to his-her place (a mattress on the floor and a bathroom with no door) and proceeds to kill them with poisoned tequila. The shoe part comes in afterwards when tranny-banny-fo-fanny goes off the proverbial rocker and goes all meat tenderizer on one goon’s face with his-her size 12 pumps. As for Frank DeKova, he actually did play many roles as Native American characters (funny in and of itself), the most notable string of which did indeed occur on “F-Troop”: the one part of that synopsis that actually lives up to its claim 100%. As far the movie itself goes, a classic bad movie flaw shines through as DeKova is credited as the movie’s “Special Guest Star”. I’m going to put this on a little tape recorder and carry it around with me given the number of times I’m forced to say it: THERE’S SO SUCH THING AS A “SPECIAL GUEST STAR” IN A MOVIE! SPECIAL GUEST STARS ARE RESERVED FOR TELEVISION SHOWS AND TELEVISION SHOWS ONLY!

Did this synopsis chode even watch the movie first, or is he just kinda piecing together a quick and dirty fast sell for suckers like myself whose money burns bigger holes in their pockets than a lit cigarette? I wanna introduce this guy to Mr. Owl so ol’ Hooty can go old skool on the a-hole and show him how many licks it takes to get to a mouthful of busted crowns, because I’m short 9 nickels thanks in part to this sneaky prick’s word manipulations.

Okay, a few more paragraphs of remaining points of contention before I finish this up: the opening credits cop the old “Dragnet” disclaimer of true stories and changed names. I had very little luck finding anything about this movie beyond the cast listings, alternate title and flubs (clothing and cars from the ‘70s traveling back in time 20 years to appear in a movie based in the ‘50s) listed on imdb.com, so I’m afraid I can’t verify the validity of that statement. If I had to hazard a guess though, I’d say it’s bullshit and this is one big made up piece of crap. Speaking of the movie’s 1956 setting, this is a fact that’s beaten over our heads repeatedly. At first I couldn’t figure out why the opening credits randomly plastered “1956” on the screen, until later when someone made it a point to tell another character that “This is 1956!”… and later still, when another character opted to make that same statement to yet another character… are the writers (all three of them) telling us that black people in the ghetto are so criminally uneducated that they need to be told which year it is every 40 minutes? Could it be that the trio knew the audience would get confused seeing the various ‘70s cars and clothes and would thus need to be reminded throughout the movie that “This is 1956!”?

For anyone who thought that modern music was too liberal with it’s carpet bombing of listeners’ ears with N-Bombs, check out this soundtrack by Ernie Banks. It’s “nigger” this and “nigger” that to the point that it becomes a part of the chorus. Is it meant to saturate people to the point where the word loses all meaning and thus loses it’s power to offend, or am I giving it too much credit? I’m guessing the latter. Back to the story, while the Italians and blacks are fighting back and forth, the mayor gets involved and wants to clean up the gambling rackets too so he can rack up some points for the coming election year. As such, the cops are pushed to clean up the place but quick, but half of them are racist abusers of power anyway (and have never had 5 minutes of fight choreography...) just looking for an excuse to beat on the hoods, the other half are on the mob’s payroll, and the Chief is working for Pasha, so yet again things get needlessly complicated. Between all of the other problems (every set looks half-constructed and makes those from HG Lewis’s earliest movies look elaborate, everyone’s blood is thicker than latex house paint, one guy has blood smeared on his jacket even before his face is busted open by a billiard ball, etc…) I just want to cut off my own feet and beat myself into unconsciousness with them so I don’t have to write any more of this fucking review!

By the way, if this review seems really cluttered and confused, it’s because that’s exactly how this entire movie is presented: completely disjointed and bogged down by scenes that either run longer than necessary or didn’t need to be filmed in the first place. Easiest way to fix all of the problems presented within Jive Turkey, aside from copious amounts of THC ingestion, tossing it down the garbage disposal or committing ritual suicide? Half of the movie needs to be trimmed down or dropped entirely (including every scene involving the “comedy relief” homeless guys who burn no less than four different scenes just hassling random extras for change!), replace all of the actors with people who actually want to act (or give them more than one take to figure out their lines…), get rid of all the disposable characters or at least give some of them something other to do than sit around complaining and doing nothing to advance the movie, give the few interesting side characters more to do (Serene was a weird bitch and obviously insane and therefore the most interesting thing going and thus needed a lot more screen time), present the scenes in a way so that the viewers don’t feel like they’re wandering around in a bludgeoned haze half the time… GAH! THERE’S NO SAVING THIS MOVIE! I GIVE UP! SHOOT IT! KILL IT! BURN IT! DISMEMBER IT SO IT CAN’T COME BACK!

I can’t do it. I really can’t. I’m trying to make this an entertaining review. I’m trying to give a well thought out opinion and offer suggestions on how to utilize the potential of a “hoods vs. gangsters” movie. I’ve been doing this kind of crap on and off for 8 years now and I just can’t do it anymore!... at least not with Jive Turkey. I give up. I give it one star for the story potential, the charisma Pasha manages to squeak out, the catchy blues soundtrack (blatant ‘n’ wording not withstanding) and Serene the nutcase transvestite assassin. Everything else will be catalogued and numbered at a later time so I know exactly how many flaming splinters to wedge underneath the toenails of Bill Brame, Fredericka DeCosta and Elizabeth & Howard Ransom. I’m done. It’s over. I’m putting on my sombrero, packing my winged monkey costume, unplugging my catheter and giving the sock puppets the finger. Fuck this. I’m tired and there are better (either because they’re higher quality or just more fun to make fun of) movies to waste my time on. End.