Movie Review - Bible Based: Down 'n Dirty

This Review Reveals Minor Details About the Plot.

Time to get down and dirty.

Plot Overview

A California stakeout was a Mafia setup, but did they get the right guy? Streetwise Dakota “Dak” Smith (Fred Williamson) thinks the hit was meant for him when he and his partner were hot on the trail of corruption. The department doesn't agree, but he keeps at it with dogged persistence.

Ideology

photographer filing cop writing ticket Dak of swarthy, Latin complexion eats tacos in the park with his colored boychik on visitation day. The kid asks him, “Will you ever come home?” Dak replies, “You and your mom, we agreed to go our separate ways. Sometimes people can't live together; they just can't get along. It's complicated.” Huh? Dak shows himself throughout the movie to be easy to get along with. Women like him, ex-partners laud him, criminals fear him, and the intransigent department finds compromise. He handily talks himself out of a parking ticket, he co-opts photographer Nick Gleem (Randy J. Goodwin) caught shooting his picture to work for him instead, and he persuades an assistant DA Sandra Collins (Beverly Johnson) to purloin some confidential files for him. Furthermore, he is current on his child support, his ex- is cooperative with visitation, & she holds his mail sans complaint. Sounds like they could negotiate something. What's the holdup? It must be the black & white thing, miscegenation. The movie alludes to it but expects us to be savvy to begin with.

plowing For those not settled in the sands of time, I offer this remedial history lesson, with apologies to those who don't need it. The biblical story is widely known of Adam & Eve's transgression in the Garden of Eden, how the woman ate the forbidden fruit and gave some to her husband to eat (Gen. 3:6), God responding by increasing the severity of the woman's childbirth pains (Gen. 3:16) and making man's toil onerous (Gen. 3:17-19.) What is less well known—except in places like the Bible Belt—is a redo of sorts to ameliorate man's difficult labor. Noah's father Lamech had (Gen. 5:29) “called his name Noah, saying, This same shall comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed.” They still had to follow the earlier template to get a reprieve. Instead of the forbidden tree to be respected by the first couple, there was old man Noah whose work break was to be respected by his three sons. (Gen. 6:10) “And Noah begat three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.” They formed themselves into two pairs: the eldest Japheth & Shem, and the youngest Ham paired with his own son Canaan making the numbers even. Noah fortified himself with wine before invoking blessings on them, as later would Isaac with savory venison before blessing Esau. The (red) yakut wine of Turkey is a blend of four grapes—actually two pairs—so the numbers correspond. In the Genesis account of the Flood, is a mystery woman, the mother of Ham. (Gen. 9:18-19) “And the sons of Noah, that went forth of the ark, were Shem, and Ham, and Japheth: and Ham is the father of Canaan. These are the three sons of Noah: and of them was the whole earth overspread.” Let's look again at Noah's story (Jasher 5:14-17):

And the Lord said unto Noah, Take unto thee a wife, and beget children, for I have seen thee righteous before me in this generation. And thou shalt raise up seed, and thy children with thee, in the midst of the earth; and Noah went and took a wife, and he chose Naamah the daughter of Enoch, and she was five hundred and eighty years old. And Noah was four hundred and ninety-eight years old, when he took Naamah for a wife. And Naamah conceived and bare a son, and he called his name Japheth, saying, God has enlarged me in the earth; and she conceived again and bare a son, and he called his name Shem, saying, God has made me a remnant, to raise up seed in the midst of the earth.

Shem and Japheth were full brothers, Ham was born at a later date (the youngest, see Gen. 9:24) perhaps from a different mother. Noah's wife was older than he was. Perhaps at 580+ years she was no longer able to bear children after the first two. She didn't have any more after the flood, even though it was a time to repopulate the earth. Maybe she stopped bearing before the flood. Ham could then have been stepbrother of the other two.

Researcher Mark DeWayne Combs posits that, “Although Jasher specifically references the births of Japheth and Shem, there is no such reference to the birth of Ham. … that Ham may have been much younger than his brothers and that he may have had a different mother” (389). Combs also observes, “Fathering a child, particularly a son, through a handmaiden or servant girl would not have been an uncommon or forbidden practice in that time period” (165). Historian Kenneth M. Stampp remarks that “Apologists for slavery traced the history of servitude back to the dawn of civilization and showed that it had always existed in some form until their own day” (14).

Come the deluge and the ark's passengers could well be a model for, (James 5:13) “Is any among you afflicted? let him pray. Is any merry? let him sing psalms.” There was undoubtedly a lot of distress on their voyage occasioning a lot of prayer, and their eventual landfall would have been accompanied by much celebration. As ordained minister Tom Dooley points out, “Such a long period of ark living must have been quite tiresome. No doubt Noah's family was thankful for their safety and provisions; however, one could imagine them becoming restless, ready to get their feet on dry land again” (59.)

directions When (Jasher 6:40–41) “they all went out from the ark, they went and returned every one to his way and to his place, and Noah and his sons dwelt in the land.” They'd been cooped up together long enough, so now they spread out according to some preestablished pecking order. God (Jasher 6:42) “said unto them, Be fruitful and fill all the earth; become strong.” In our movie the first pointer Dak gave his kid was to, “Be strong.” The example given early in the movie was when Dak and his partner strong-armed a desk clerk into telling them the whereabouts of their target. They were not as dainty as Sunday School depictions of Noah's story seem to make him. To become strong for Noah's brood meant, among other things, taking their needed meds when sick, along the lines of, (James. 5:14) “Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.” Children are always getting sick. Here it seemed to be Canaan's turn whose elders would have been his father Ham and grandfather Noah. Oil in Bible times was a medication, e.g. (Luke 10:34) “bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine,” as was, (1Tim. 5:23) “Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities.” Grapes grow in the summer, but once they're fermented, the wine can be stored throughout the year. Noah got into the store while setting an example for a work break, establishing period(s) of escape from hard work per Lamech's saying. By chance or design it interfered—it had to inconvenience someone—with Ham's youngest son Canaan's need, and Ham could well have been the low-status brother from another mother.

Instead of the wily serpent we had Noah's wife as an on-the-spot agent, who since she isn't mentioned, did well incurring no rebuke. She would have made herself scarce giving Noah some space to relax when he started drinking. (1Tim. 2:9-10) “In like manner also, that women adorn themselves … (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works.” Being a virtuous woman (Prov. 31:27) “She looketh well to the ways of her household, and eateth not the bread of idleness.” She would not have let grass grow under her feet but would have gone straight to visit Ham to make adjustments regarding their diminished store of medicinal alcohol, like the homespun heroine in an Andrew Taylor novel:

Mrs Arabella was a woman of decision. Having made up her mind to do something, she did not postpone it and did not permit half-measures. The inoculation of the household was arranged the following day and put into practice on the day after. (175)

Dak's third pointer to his kid was, “Always take care of mom.” When she came visiting, Ham showed up shortly at Noah's tent to check out the cause. He fell to temptation by mocking his dad to his two brothers, but they would have none of it. This is parallel to Eve earlier failing first then offering the fruit to Adam who accepted it, but here the older brothers did not go along with Ham, so we'd expect them to receive a blessing rather than a curse such as it was. The distribution of labor had to be readjusted to account for the new workers' holiday(s), and Ham for his insolence left himself and his family line open to taking up the slack. Depicted below is that scene rendered in a Civil War vintage woodcut, made after a drawing by Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld (German painter, 1794–1872) from his archive, published in 1877.

The alternate image text by licensor iStock.com/Getty Images explains what happened here to Noah and his fermented grapes: “When he drank some of the wine, he got drunk and uncovered himself inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father's nakedness and told his two brothers who were outside. Shem and Japheth took a garment and placed it on their shoulders. Then they walked in backwards and covered up their father's nakedness. Their faces were turned the other way so they did not see their father's nakedness (Genesis 9:21-23).” They covered the old man to prevent him from catching a chill in the mountains as it was no longer summer. Ham's show of disrespect to their patriarch is like the treatment of a revered matriarch in a Seymour novel:

I don't think she'll be pleased to know that her picture is now a source of amusement throughout Naples. When she knows, and she soon will—it's inevitable—that her daughter … is in part responsible for her being photographed with bare thighs and most of her arse on display, I believe she'll feel resentful towards you. (131)

Ham had put himself in jeopardy according to, (Prov. 30:17) “The eye that mocketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it.” Especially pertinent in this case is Noah's control over the animals including the raven (Gen. 8:7) and he is not unique, at least not in literature. Novelist Ted Bell writes of a chief inspector who “had been beaten to within an inch of his life and nearly pecked to death by countless killer ravens. All the while locked inside the cage of a Victorian aviary” (357.) There is even biblical precedent for it when some kids mocked a man of God for not having a covering of hair on his head and they got mauled by beasts. (2Kings 2:23-24) “And … as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him, and said unto him, Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head. And he turned back, and looked on them, and cursed them in the name of the LORD. And there came forth two she bears out of the wood, and tare forty and two children of them.”

eye trim There's a parity of eye loss and servitude given in (Exodus 21:26) “And if a man smite the eye of his servant, or the eye of his maid, that it perish; he shall let him go free for his eye's sake.” Ham and his line—represented by Canaan in his lineage—could be given servitude rather than mutilation. This would be in keeping with the sentiment of Job in, (Job 31:7-8) “If my step hath turned out of the way, and mine heart walked after mine eyes, and if any blot hath cleaved to mine hands; Then let me sow, and let another eat; yea, let my offspring be rooted out.” In that woodcut-derived picture above we see Ham after disregarding his mom's caution, checking up on his dad, getting carried away by an eyeful of the dishabille inebriate, and gesturing with his hands to his brothers. If he were to “sow, and another eat” and his “offspring be rooted out,” that would mean becoming a slave and his offspring being carried away in slavery. Okay.

The Bible's account leans towards the latter. (Gen. 9:24-27) “And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his younger son [Ham] had done unto him. And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. And he said, Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.” When Noah woke up, he blessed as a pair the lines of his two respectful sons and cursed Ham's line—pairing Ham with his youngest son Canaan as was Noah's wont to go by twos—giving them servitude to his other two sons'. (Jasher 73:35) “For the Lord our God gave Ham the son of Noah, and his children and all his seed, as slaves to the children of Shem and to the children of Japheth, and unto their seed after them for slaves, forever.”

Ham's youngest son Canaan is the particularly noted recipient of the punishment. Later when the Israelis invaded the promised land, the Canaanites were due for destruction, but the Gibeonite branch (the Hivites of Joshua 11:19 & Gen. 10:15-17) did a deal with Joshua who was the Jewish leader. They'd heard what happened to other Canaanite tribes, so they sent ambassadors dressed as if they'd come from a long journey (Joshua 9:3-6) and persuaded Joshua to make a league with this “distant” tribe. When it was discovered they'd tricked Joshua into sparing them, (Joshua 9:24-27) he made them bondmen, which was more to their liking. If this trick is indicative of the character of the original Canaan, he might well have been malingering to get out of his chores, which would also help explain Noah's hesitation to coddle him with wine. At any rate Noah deserved to relax with some of the wine store after his hard work. Dak's second pointer to his son was, “Be tough.” Re-establishing a peaceful planet after the cleansing flood necessitated Noah being tough on his wayward son's line.

The dynamic of hoarding is addressed in (James 5:4) “Behold, the hire of the labourers who have reaped down your fields, which is of you kept back by fraud, crieth: and the cries of them which have reaped are entered into the ears of the Lord of sabaoth.” The God of rest would have the workers spend a portion of their earnings for fun and relaxation—they deserved it. The hoarder would fraudulently hold back that portion of their due, giving them bare sustenance. Curiously, the hoarder would have his skin blackened and body marked (James 5:3) as a witness against him.

More germane to modern times is perhaps the lineage of Cush, Ham's oldest son (Gen. 10:6,) Cush meaning black in Hebrew, having settled in Africa, some of his to become in later years African-American slaves. Researcher Bodie Hodge confirms that, “As a general trend, Ham is the father of many peoples in Africa” (122). Dr. Ide adds, “Ham sired four sons: Cush (translates as ‘black’) … and Canaan the youngest” (62).

high ball The cues that Dak had picked an incompatible mate would be the ordinary ones of race, which he should have been aware of from the get-go. As noted by columnist Michael Omi, “In our society one of the first things we notice about people when we encounter them (along with their sex/gender) is their race. We utilize race to provide clues about who a person is and how we should relate to her/him” (627.) When Dak examines the ball his kid brought to the park, he angrily declaims, “What the— You brought the wrong ball. Ball don't have no points on it. You don't play with a ball don't have no have no points on it.” The cover of the baseball needs to be considered before even starting play, just as we do with the external racial indicators of a person before even starting to get involved.

card players pencil In the movie is a card scene in which one of the players is a Negro. Some of them stand up and shuffle around when Dak shows up to arrest his man. There's a camera shot of the top half of the black's face centered in the bottom of the frame, with two white guys' faces above on either side of him. Skin color is one factor. Dak's friend Det. Jerry Cale (Bubba Smith) has his hair pomaded flat to disguise kinky curls, another Negroid characteristic. And if we're allowed to get Freudian, ladies' man, photographer Gleem exits the hospital in a Frankenstein posture with stiff outstretched arms representing, we take it, the long sexual member of his race, and he inserts himself into the back seat of his newly arrived wife's red Cadillac convertible with fins.

Dak's ex-wife is not shown on screen but we do hear her on the phone. Novelist Joseph Kirkland has described the “negro dialect and pronunciation, the latter seeming to be the product of soft flabby organs too large to be comfortably managed and used in the mouth that contains them” (352.) DnD uses a clever mechanism to highlight this difference that might not be readily noticed by a forgiving ear. Dak receives electronically disguised, threatening phone calls (from a female) that do sound like too many speech organs in the same mouth. When he does finally talk to her in the clear, she sounds normal. His phone conversations with his ex- do not, by comparison, not quite.

Production Values

“” (2000) was directed by Fred Williamson. It was written by Aubrey K. Rattan. It stars Fred Williamson, Bubba Smith and Gary Busey. The actors do fine, but the action moves fast not giving them much time to develop their characters, yet there are enough side trips to stretch out the film anyway.

MPAA rated it R for violence, some language and a scene of sexuality. The editing was choppy, but then so was the action. The drumming music is an asset to the action. Clichés are rife. The talk is sometimes muffled, but the action explains itself. The plot is to a degree predictable but high enough octane to get away with it. The audience won't mind. Runtime is 1¾ hours.

Review Conclusion w/a Christian's Recommendation

I liked this movie, but then I'm easy to please. It's for people who like to get down to the nitty gritty without being finessed. The father & son scene was tops. For people who like movies that move.

Movie Ratings

Action factor: Edge of your seat action-packed. Suitability For Children: Not Suitable for Children of Any Age. Special effects: Well, at least you can't see the strings. Video Occasion: Good for Action Groupies. Suspense: Keeps you on the edge of your seat. Overall movie rating: Three stars out of five.

Works Cited

Scripture quoted from the King James Version. Pub. 1611, rev. 1769, 1873. Print. Software.

The Book of Jasher. Translated from the Hebrew into English (1840). Photo lithographic reprint of exact edition published by J.H. Parry & Co., Salt Lake City: 1887. Muskogee, OK: Artisan Pub., 1988. Print, Web.

Combs, Mark DeWayne. End the Beginning. USA: Splinter in the Mind's Eye Pub., 2014. Print.

Hodge, Bodie. Tower of Babel: The Cultural History of Our Ancestors. Green Forest, AR: New Leaf Pub., 2013. Print.

Ide, Arthur Frederick. Noah & the Ark: The Influence of Sex, Homophobia and Heterosexism in the Flood Story and its Writing. Las Colinas: Monument Press, 1992. Print.

Kirkland, Joseph. Zury: The Meanest Man in Spring County. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1956. Facsimile reprint.

Omi, Michael, “In Living Color: Race and American Culture” from Cultural Politics in Contemporary America, ed by Ian Angus and Sut Jhally. Copyright © 1989 by Michael Omi. As reprinted by permission of the author in Maasik, Sonia and Jack Solomon, Signs of Life in the U.S.A.. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2012. Print.

Stampp, Kenneth M., Professor of American History at the University of California (Berkeley).
The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South. Vintage Books, 1955. Print.

Movie: Down 'n Dirty

Bible Based Review