"Original Gangstas." Directed by Larry Cohen

By MARY ELIZABETH WILLIAMS

blaxploitation has always been about power -- fighting it, getting it, holding on to it. The first movies of the genre, after all, came at the tail end of the civil rights struggles of the '60s. Here at last, albeit in low-budget and sensationalistic form, were African Americans presented as heroes, swinging furiously at any force that tried to hold them back. The blaxploitation films of the early '70s -- from "Coffy" to "Three the Hard Way" -- have borne the years with varying degrees of grace. But, as "Original Gangstas" -- veteran B-movie director Larry Cohen's ("Black Caesar," 1973) genre revival -- proves, the biggest stars of that heyday can still pack a wallop.

This isn't blaxploitation's first resurrection. A few years ago, socially conscious descendants of the stylized urban drama began cropping up, with movies like "Boyz N the Hood" and "New Jack City." "Original Gangstas" tries to be a hybrid of both types of films -- the earlier stories of maverick anti-heroes, and the more recent parables of inner city horror.

John Bookman (Fred Williamson), a successful former athlete living in Los Angeles, returns to his hometown of Gary, Indiana after 15 years. His father has taken a few bullets for talking to the cops after a young man was murdered in front of his store. Bookman -- who we are to believe has been completely in the dark regarding the ever-decaying state of his parents' town -- is outraged to find his neighborhood under the thumb of a hyperactively ultraviolent gang. And he's all the more incensed because it's the Rebels -- the group he founded back in the old days. (You know that Gary has a crime problem to be reckoned with when Bookman suggests moving his family to Los Angeles to get away from the gangs.) Before long, the fed-up and revenge-thirsty Bookman's going mano a mano with gang members, all leading to a showdown in which the good, mellowed-out old gangstas take on the bad, snotty young ones.

Williamson, who both stars in and produced the film, has grown thick around the middle and a little gray on the temples, but he's still a one-man deli of knuckle sandwiches for the bad guys. He can take on about five at a time before reinforcements have to come in -- and when they show up in the form of veterans Jim Brown and Pam Grier (as the murdered boy's parents), it's quite apparent that the butt-kicking has just begun.

The film is peppered with appearances by other genuine original gangstas. "Shaft" star Richard Roundtree and "Superfly" Ron O'Neal don't appear onscreen nearly enough, but fortunately most of the time they are there they're carrying very large weapons and seem to be loving it.

Where "Original Gangstas" works is in its understanding that the stars are playing the characters they created 25 years ago as their older selves. They're still fierce as hell -- to watch Pam Grier wield a baseball bat remains an experience of great joy -- but they're also still cool. And it's that coolness that separates them from their youthful, randomly destructive counterparts.

When Jim Brown confronts Rebel leader Spyro (Christopher B. Duncan) and growls, "You're a dead man," he carries all the menace of a big man who doesn't have to use his fists -- but might. But when Spyro waits until Brown is safely at a distance, then just laughs it off in front of his friends, we see his display for the hollow adolescent braggadocio it is. And while gang member Kayo is a jittery, Jerhi-curled thug with platter-sized medallions -- a caricature of ghetto prosperity who doesn't even know he's a caricature -- Bookman is a black-clad colossus of steel, elegant even while pummeling a guy's face in. A Rebel girl watches him on television speaking out against her own gang, and can't help but remark "Damn, he ain't so bad looking for an old man." Got that right.

The scenes in which the old school Rebels fight against the tyranny of the gangs -- and teach their neighbors to take back the community -- are the best parts of the movie. It's in those vignettes that the film becomes a tale of emancipation, of combating the powers of ineffectual white government leaders, of indifferent clergy and cops, of the rampant, poverty-fueled nihilism and the loneliness of broken families that drive kids to become killers.

Where it is less successful is its grim vigilantism. Grier and Brown, still mourning for the young son they've lost, are seen repeatedly gunning for his young killers, clearly willing to leave other parents grieving for their own teenage sons. It doesn't seem so much right-on heroism as rage carried to senseless extremes. And a subplot involving a ploy to get rival gangs in the city to turn on each other just seems a sad affirmation of the let-them-just-kill-each-other mentality that makes black-on-black violence a national tragedy.

There are moments in "Original Gangstas" of pure, gleeful nostalgia. Williamson, Grier, Brown and company still look magnificent delivering body blows or firing round after round into enemy territory, and bear the satisfied ease of old comrades delighted to be reunited for one last mission. But this time, the enemy is right at home, and instead of fighting the Man they're fighting their own kids. Ultimately, it makes the battle a whole lot less satisfying.

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