The 'Black Dynamite' Team's 'Outlaw Johnny Black' Is Surprisingly Touching

October 2024 · 8 minute read

Editor's Note: The following contains Outlaw Johnny Black spoilers.

The Big Picture

When the world first learned of Outlaw Johnny Black, it's safe to say that we all expected a gonzo, action comedy like this team's last group effort Black Dynamite. What no one saw coming, though, is that this latest film is... actually kind of touching. Yes, Michael Jai White plays the titular lead just like he did back in 2009, the film acts as a parody of a classic subgenre, and the film is riddled with hilarious bits, but not quite as many as Dynamite. Instead, White and co. favored telling a more dramatic story this time around. Outlaw Johnny Black isn't just a comedy, it's a movie about family, forgiveness, finding love, and most surprisingly, religion! If you're looking for Black Dynamite 2, you might want to redirect your expectations. Don't come looking for back-to-back jokes that will leave you rolling in the aisles, show up for a couple of laughs and a good lesson.

If Outlaw Johnny Black has managed to sneak under your radar, then don't worry because today is your lucky day. This is the latest film from the team behind Black Dynamite, the action comedy blaxploitation cult classic from 2009. For those who haven't seen that movie, drop everything that you're doing right now and go fire it up. It's an airtight, 84-minute madhouse of wall-to-wall laughs, badass one-liners, killer funk jams, and parodies of multiple exploitation genres, all while chronicling the odyssey of one Black Dynamite (Michael Jai White). This team's first outing is so funny that it ends up becoming a bit exhausting as its third act comes into play. Once you cross the hour mark, you'll look up and realize that you haven't stopped laughing for one second, and there are still 24 minutes left in the runtime. The rest of the movie still rocks (particularly the fight with Richard Nixon and everything on Kung Fu Island), but it's as if you're a runner running a marathon. It's good for you, and you love it, but you're spent by the end of it.

How Is 'Outlaw Johnny Black' Connected to 'Black Dynamite'?

Outlaw Johnny Black has been massively anticipated by fans of Dynamite for years now. The film was first announced back in 2018, with a fake trailer taking the internet by storm. This fake trailer was used because, despite White's success with his previous parody, the film had to be made independently after not being picked up by any major production companies. White turned to a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo and raised money for the movie on his own. That might have made the movie take longer to be made, but it also meant that its filmmaker would have more creative control over it than ever. Black Dynamite doesn't at all feel like a movie meddled with by studios, but its successor definitely doesn't!

'Outlaw Johnny Black' Is a Long, Thoughtful Comedy

Outlaw Johnny Black, mostly for better, feels like it was made by a singular artist. Instead of taking on a short runtime as he did back in 2009, White brought us his own Western epic. You might look at this as his The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. It's a two-hour and 15-minute parody of spaghetti Westerns, and surprise — it's hilarious. Johnny Black (White) kicks ass just like Black Dynamite did, using martial arts much more often than he does his six-shooter. Insane one-liners are thrown around sporadically, but not as often as his last effort. Once again, White's character's missions are made better by operatic funk needle drops, but these pieces float amidst a soundtrack with a wide variety of tones. Like Dynamite, Black is a man on a revenge mission, but unlike his 1970s counterpart, the titular Outlaw has a lesson to learn on his vengeful quest.

Outlaw Johnny Black isn't a revenge film that uses its lead character's initial motives as a springboard for mindless action. By the end of Black Dynamite, you forget that the whole reason he hit the streets in the first place was to avenge the death of his younger brother Jimmy (Baron Vaughn). Instead, you're just wrapped up in the fact that Abraham Lincoln appears as a ghost to aid Dynamite in hand-to-hand combat against Richard Nixon. As soon as Johnny Black kicks off, Black pulls a bullet out of his pocket with the name Brett Clayton (Chris Browning) etched on the side of it.

A few scenes later, we learn that Clayton is the man who killed the Outlaw's father, a crime that we see in flashback. This isn't played for laughs either, like the death of Jimmy in Dynamite. Unlike the soundtrack's common use of slick funk bangers, this scene sets the precedent for some rather dramatic music to be used when White is actually trying to say something thematically, craft a serious tone, or draw an emotion out of the audience besides a laugh. As his life is being threatened, Bullseye Black (Glynn Turman), a sideshow performer by day and preacher in the evenings, tries to persuade Clayton to turn from his ways. When he is forced to draw a weapon at a standoff with Clayton, he pulls out his Bible instead of a gun and explains that since "the war", he vowed never to kill again. Clayton pulls the trigger anyway, setting an on-looking pre-teen Johnny Black on his lifelong mission to find this man and kill him. If you didn't already know, then this is the scene that will prove to you that Outlaw Johnny Black is not just Black Dynamite 2.

'Outlaw Johnny Black' Has a Surprising Religious Angle

Black spends the next 20-plus years hating Clayton with everything in him, spending all of his days searching the Wild West for the man who took his father's life. After escaping brief imprisonment, Black wanders through the desert and, on the brink of death, is found by Reverend Percy (Byron Minns, the secret sauce to these two movies). Percy is on a journey of his own and is a traveling preacher heading to the small town of Hope Springs, where he will step into the leadership role of a church and finally meet the woman he has been exchanging letters with for years, Bessie Lee (Erica Ash, a major highlight here). Like Minns' previous character Bullhorn, Reverend Percy's appearances are bound to leave you dying of laughter. This guy is just hilarious, but this time, he's also wise. Percy's arrival also ushers in the film's unexpected religious angle.

Outlaw Johnny Black isn't a Christian movie by any means, but when Black starts a short stint of assuming Percy's identity and is forced into being the preacher of Hope Springs' church, he begins reflecting on his own father's teachings. After Bullseye Black's death, Johnny Black spent the next few decades away from his faith. However, when he's put on the spot and has to give a sermon one Sunday morning, he recalls the night that his father died, a night at church when Bullseye preached on forgiveness. Johnny Black not only delivers his father's message verbatim and wins over his congregation, he then starts thinking about what forgiveness might look like in his own life, and his lifelong mission to kill Brett Clayton.

What happens when Black ultimately faces Clayton again? Well, you'll have to watch the movie to find out. If you asked anyone in 2009 whether they thought that the spiritual successor to Black Dynamite would feature a sincere lesson on forgiveness or not, you'd probably be left hanging off the side of a building like Cream Corn (Tommy Davidson). It might not be what people wanted, but sometimes what you get is better than what you anticipated. Of course, it would have been fun to just see another quick romp like Black Dynamite, but it sounds a bit more like we might get a straight-up sequel to that movie anyway.

Flipping back and forth between recreating Dynamite's sense of humor and genuine dramatic passages makes Outlaw Johnny Black a bit tonally disjointed, but it also proves that White was able to make the exact movie that he set out for. This movie might feel a little all over the place, but at the end of the day, it has a great lesson and proves that it's impossible to have a bad time hanging out with this creative team.

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