I'm Gonna Git You Sucka! (1988)

As he was bursting on the scene as star of the TV variety series In Living Color, Keenen Ivory Wayans also made a confident and hilarious directing debut with I'm Gonna Git You Sucka! Featuring such exaggerated stereotypes as a pimp who awkwardly struts with miniature fish tanks in his shoes, and a small-timer who dies from wearing too many gold chains, the film amply demonstrates the daring of this humorist. Risking controversy, especially at a time when black filmmakers like Spike Lee were taking themselves very seriously, Wayans doesn't mind ridiculing and possibly offending his own people with such wild characterizations, knowing that the essentially lighthearted humor will win out. It does indeed, and Wayans gets plenty of cameo and leading role help, much of it from actors straight out of the blaxpoitation films he's satirizing. As zany as it is, I'm Gonna Git You Sucka! alternates between highs and lows, episodes of incisiveness and moments of broad simplicity. But where it scores, it scores big, and the fact that the performers are such willing co-conspirators gives the impression that everyone is having a terrific time. The apparently selective Wayans seems able to sniff out a hit -- in part because of a questionable shift in focus to uneven acting vehicles, he didn't direct again until Scary Movie (2000), which became the highest grossing film not released by a major studio, 12 years later. ~ Derek Armstrong, All Movie Guide