Disco Godfather (1979) * (out of 4) Tucker Williams (Rudy Ray Moore) was a former cop who now works as the Blueberry Hill club where he is known as the Disco Godfather. Life is great until one day his nephew comes into the club strung out on Angel Dust. Williams decides to start his own investigation into who is making it and he will stop at nothing to bring them down.DISCO GODFATHER was the fourth and final film from Rudy Ray Moore in the 1970s. If you've seen his four movies then you know they're all rather wild and over-the-top but there's no question that this here is the worst. Even the actor admitted that this pretty much killed his career and it really didn't help that they tried to take his R-rated material and push it down to a PG, which is what this film did.I'm really not sure why they decided to change things up so much here but it really doesn't work because we're missing out on those classic Rudy Ray Moore jokes. Some of the best parts of films like DOLEMITE and THE HUMAN TORNADO were the actor just playing a comic and going off cracking jokes. What does work here is Moore's performance, which is actually pretty good since he plays everything rather straight. This here is basically a drama about the abuse of drugs in the black community and it certainly beats the viewer over the head with its message.The problem is that the film is downright boring throughout. The direction is pretty bad, most of the supporting performances are really bad and there's just nothing here that scream out being good. The only thing that really saves this from becoming a complete BOMB was the performance by Moore plus some really strange and bizarre horror elements dealing with the Angel Dust. There are several scenes here where we see what a bad trip is like and we're given these bizarre sequences with voodoo plus a mixture of a zombie or vampire type creature. These trips scenes are a real hoot and almost make the film worth sitting through.

This one should qualify for "Worst Movie Ever Made". Move over "Heaven Can Wait". I mean, it's so bad, you can't seem to turn it off just to see if it gets any worse, which it does. The acting is best described as "forced" and "painful". The action scenes were just plain bad. People slapping people without very obvious contact...I mean, hands one foot away from the face, body kicks the same, etc. The trippy drug freakout scenes were awesome, I do have to admit. This movie would have been better off as a "comedy" with a laugh track added. I was thinking during the drug freakout scenes where demons and skulls pop onto the screen for a second or two, it would have been aisle-rolling hilarious to have an image of Fred Sanford and Aunt Ester's faces pop up too. If you want to lose an hour and a half of your life for nothing, by all means watch this movie. It's more comedy than anything although that's not what it was intended to be.

Put yo weight on it! I was born in the early/mid-80s so I grew up well past the prime of disco, so I can't vouch for what makes horrible disco dancing. But if I had to guess, I'd say Rudy Ray Moore sucks at it. Unless contorting your face and stabbing the air with your pelvis constitutes wicked disco skills; I could be wrong. As the 70s were drawing to a close, Rudy Ray Moore was riding that disco high and decided to be a little more socially conscious with his fourth feature. In what may or may not be a serious attempt at an anti-drug message, Moore and director J. Robert Wagoner (and screen writing help from former collaborator Cliff Roquemore) have Moore tackling his most dangerous adversary yet: angel dust. Moore is Tucker Williams, a retired police officer who runs the hottest local disco joint, Blueberry Hill. But all is not well…there is a new drug flooding the streets and the youth are becoming addicted to angel dust. When Tucker's nephew Bucky suffers a mental breakdown from a bad trip in the middle of his club, Tucker makes it his solemn duty to track down the supplier of the drug and clean up the streets. Known as the Disco Godfather, he begins an investigation into its local production at the command of Stinger Ray, a local businessman whose legitimate front is some sort of basketball team he is recruiting for. Or something. I couldn't quite figure out who Stinger Ray was supposed to be. Zaniness ensues."Haven't you heard, Godfather? Our children are dying."The movie begins with a nearly ten minute sequence of disco dancing at Blueberry Hill with Moore chanting "Put yo weight on it!" in a failed attempt to institute a new catchphrase, presumably to pad the running time to feature length. You need to have a bit of patience with this movie because it has a tendency to cram in a disco break randomly, regardless of how it brings the story to a screeching halt. If Moore and the filmmakers had intended to do a serious movie to address a serious social issue, they probably shouldn't have made the drug portions so hilarious. The people high on angel dust in this movie are just too funny, accurate or not. I've never witnessed anyone high on the drug, and I have my doubts that the writers were overly concerned with research. Disco! There's a scene where the Disco Godfather is given a tour through a facility where people recover from angel dust, but it doesn't quite have the effect I think the filmmakers were going for. The movie has the usual bits of awesome we've come to expect from a Rudy Ray Moore movie: cheesy effects, horrible acting, and moments of total absurdity. There's a point where the Disco Godfather battles a cowboy. No joke, a cowboy. And the cowboy is using a whip. It's just so bizarre and misplaced, and I totally love moments like it.I do need to give this movie some credit. It is the first Rudy Ray Moore movie I've seen with structure! There aren't multiple plot lines going in random directions, but one solid story of the Godfather's battle against angel dust. The problem is that the movie is just boring. It's weak. I watch Moore's movies for the absurd characters, low production value, and strange attempts at action. We don't get much of that here. With the quasi-serious tone, we lose a lot of the WTF factor that makes Moore's movies so fun to watch. DISCO GODFATHER is a difficult movie to remember after seeing it because there really isn't anything memorable here. I honestly didn't care about this movie for 90% of it until the final battle at the angel dust production plant. Moore busts out with his weird brand of kung-fu as he battles his way into the plant until *gasp!* he's exposed to angel dust! Moore's nightmare on angel dust makes it worth the hassle of watching his movie. It's the best Moore moment since the final battle through the house on the hill in THE HUMAN TORNADO. Oh, and we get some of the regular cast in the movie. Jimmy Lynch and Jerry Jones return, and Lady Reed is relegated to a minor role that spares us her usual painful line delivery. In the end, the movie fails to live up to any of Moore's movies that came before it. It doesn't have nearly as many laughs, and it has 100% more disco. If it weren't for the awesome finale, I probably would have marked it even lower.

45 minutes of stupefying disco awfulness followed by 45 minutes of brain busting psycho angel dust drama = 90 mins of DISCO GODFATHER. Here I was gleefully looking forward to an epic of THE APPLE proportions and what did ah git? Angel Dust baby! Angel dust on da disco floo-wah. Call me an am boo lance....... Rudy Ray Moore certainly is a one of a kind..and I struggled to get me thru the final sequence of hallucinatory kung fu warehouse fights and dungeon ghastliness because I never have seen a film lose it's way so completely. DISCO GODFATHER needed to stay firmly on the roller disco floor with all the other dancing wannabees and leave the drug lecture outside with Bucky, the 7ft he-man nephew. Rudy Ray Moore is terrific as the caring sharing flab-man in blue silk jump suit and silver shoes of the title... and the music for the most part is great, but oh dear, once the action leaves the dance floor, this dancing dictating Godfather becomes a religious revival meeting bore. Watch the first half only. Stop after the roller disco dude in his underpants does his spin thing.