As somebody who lives in the city just West of Gary, I can tell you that it does exist and is in worse shape than the movie portrayed. The gangs may be different but crime is still rampant. A lot of the buildings in the movie are still there, in worse shape than what was in the movie and they still film there when they want to show a disaster zone. The city relied too heavily on the former U.S. Steel to support it. As the mill downsized and other industry moved out,"White Flight" and corrupt politicians began the death knell. There are a lot of good people there who are trying to make things better, but aren't having a lot of success. It's really a shame, it was a beautiful city at one time. I did enjoy the movie enough to watch it a couple times.

John Bookman (Fred Williamson) returns to his home town which is now over run by gangs. His father is attacked and John wants to clean up the city. He enlists two old friends to help--Laurie (Pam Grier) and Jake (Jim Brown). But the gang leader is a borderline psycho and won't let go of the city. Bookman realizes they're going to have to fight to win.This was just made to get some of the best stars from the 1970s blaxploitation films together to kick a** like they did back then! Aside from Williamson, Grier and Brown we also get Ron O'Neal and Richard Roundtree popping up in small roles. And it's always good to see Paul Winfield, Isabel Sanford and Robert Forster (before his big comeback in 1997's "Jackie Brown"--with Grier). The basic plot is OK but there are some serious mistakes made. As the movie goes on the plot gets increasingly stupid (Williamson's "plan" to pit the gangs against each other causes killings and huge property destruction) and there are plenty of loopholes. There's some great action sequences but (even for this type of movie) it's far too violent. Seeing old people and children attacked or killed is just going too far. Still it's great to see these actors in action again. Grier easily gives the best performance--but I was surprised at how really good Williamson and Brown were. This gets a 7 just for the cast. Worth catching...just don't think about it too much.

It has always amazed me how the star of this film, Fred Williamson, has gone to such great lengths to badmouth this flick and the work of his former friend, writer-director Larry Cohen. I've read it and I've heard it on DVD audio commentaries--"Hiring Larry for Original Gangstas was a mistake," Williamson says. Yet he has nothing but praise for his own work as a writer-director.Is the Hammer on crack, or what? This is a very slick, very cool little low budget action flick that shows the old time stars to great advantage. Cohen did a great job. In fact, if you took all the good parts from every movie that Fred Williamson produced and directed himself and put them together, the film you'd end up with would still be 1/100th the film this one is (of course a compilation of "good parts" from Hammer's self-directed flicks would only be 15 minutes long).I love Fred Williamson. His pre-1976 movies like "Black Caesar" and "Bucktown" are classics, and I like him as a performer. I'd LOVE to see him work in more mainstream movies, as a lead. But the man has only been in three halfway decent films in the past quarter century: "Starsky and Hutch," "From Dusk Til Dawn," and "OG." And "OG" is the best of the three in my opinion. His self produced-directed efforts, his Italian-Euro cheapazoid flicks--they ALL rank as some of the absolute worst movies of all time.So, don't listen to the star of the show, just watch the movie. "Original Gangstas" is a solid flick.

A veteran cast make this update of the blaxploitation genre worth watching. Fred Williamson (Black Caesar), Jim Brown (Slaughter), Pam Grier (Coffy/Foxy Brown), Richard Roundtree (Shaft) and Ron O'Neal (Superfly) join forces to combat the newer, younger version of the same gang they formed some twenty years prior. Not enough Roundtree or O'Neal and barely enough action but a decent enough entry. For fans of the genre.