One of the most successful and iconic blaxploitation films of the '70s, Super Fly's power and continued relevancy come from more than Curtis Mayfield's excellent soundtrack. Ron O'Neal plays Priest, a successful cocaine dealer (and user) sitting on $300k who wants to invest it all in top-of-the-line product to make "one last score" and walk away from the game with a million cash in the bank. But there's no morality tale somehow - if anything a moral vaccuum, an existential bleakness. Priest, talking to one of his girlfriends, admits that he only hopes that a million dollars will give him the freedom that he might become happy. Super Fly may seem to revel in earthly indulgences and racial stereotypes: coke, chrome, infidelity. Beneath that, though, it is heavy with a sense of meaninglessness, that, in the end, we hope Priest is able to escape.
