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That Man Bolt
[Universal]
1973; color
Directed by Henry Levin & David Lowell Rich
Starring: Fred Williamson, Byron Webster, Miko Mayama & Teresa Graves
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As if this isn't obvious enough from the cover seen to the left of this review, Fred Williamson is That Man Bolt. Jefferson Bolt that is. He's a martial arts expert and we know that not just from the cover art but because the first shots of him feature a solo shirtless sweaty That Man Bolt high kicking, yelling "hee-yah" and otherwise practicing his craft to the best of his ability in his cave-like prison cell. But let's not get too far ahead of ourselves. Before we get to see Fred Williamson flexing, we see an unfortunate fellow being pulled from the murky depths of a busy seaport in Macao. Actually he wasn't pulled from the murky depths so much as he was already dead and therefore floating on top of the murky depths but you get the idea. Upon closer inspection we clearly see there's a briefcase handcuffed to one of his limp appendages. Cue hand ready to open said drippy briefcase... linger here long enough to see that not so surprisingly, except for the sewn in lining, there's not a darn thing inside it... and cut to the aforementioned solo karate scene. Hmmm, I wonder if this empty briefcase has any correlation to why our hero has been locked in this foreign cell for the past week for no good reason? Well, no. And yes. As we're soon to find out, nothing is quite so cut and dry in That Man Bolt's world because, as clever of a man as he is, he often winds up in precarious situations thanks to his day job. I'm still not a hundred percent clear what that job is in terms of what he'd list as his occupation on a W2 form but let's just say he's an underworld jack-of-all-trades who can be hired - or threatened with even more false imprisonment - to do whatever types of bidding one might need a strapping young African American karate expert to take care of. In this case, he's on the case of delivering a briefcase full of money from Hong Kong to Mexico City at the behest of some uber wealthy Brit. (If only he knew how the last guy with a briefcase full of what we assume was money cuffed to his hand ended up!) Seems simple enough right? Perhaps. But in a twisty twist of fate it turns out the money is funny, honey. And not haha funny either. Funny in the sense that it's counterfeit and therefore as valuable as monopoly money. (Interestingly, had they actually filled the briefcase with monopoly money at some point that would have been haha funny.) Needless to say, when Bolt gets wind of this switcheroo he is fit to be tied and decides to pull a little switcheroo of his own, after of course exacting the proper amount of revenge and making time to make time with his main honey, the chick who played the title character in Get Christy Love. Although not as well known as some of his other films of the era, on the whole Fred Williamson rarely disappoints and this film is no exception.
—Bunny
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