First things first, I have to acknowledge that this movie was a very modest production, even in comparison to other blaxploitation movies. Watching this movie might make you appreciate how much effort goes into shooting and editing them into a watchable movie since so much goes wrong in this one. Really bad sets, lighting problems, audio going between too loud and too soft, and much more are all over this movie. One thing working in its favor is that unlike some other low-budget blaxploitation movies, you don't see the boom mic slip into shots as much. Though that may be because that the crew didn't use one for many shots. Anyways, the story is pretty straight forward. Al Connors/The Guy (played by Loye Hawkins) is a private detective in Miami whose only distinguishing feature is being from Harlem. In the movie we really don't see anything extraordinary he does, and even the fights he gets into aren't anything to show his prowess. There are two different cases The Guy handles in the movie. The cases don't seem to relate to each other and it almost appears as if we got two different plots merged into one. The movie starts with a woman being harassed by a mook or something. Then it abruptly cuts to The Guy driving around town with a really funky intro as he drives to his office. Unfortunately the rest of the movie doesn't hold up to the intro's funk. The first case has The Guy get requested by some G-Men to run protection for a visiting African princess, which I suppose is to establish that The Guy is so badass that even the government goes to him for help. Anyways, he foils a kidnapping attempt (or was it assassination?) while she was getting a massage, and scores with the princess. Unfortunately it's no where near as exciting as that may sound and their intimate scene comes off as bizarre more than anything.The second case has The Guy receive a crime boss who informs The Guy that his daughter has been kidnapped (the one who was shown at the beginning), and he needs The Guy to rescue her. So I guess half-way through the movie they decided to go full Shaft here. Also, the crime boss actor is yelling his lines the whole time which adds some unintentional humor.Anyways, without getting too bogged down on details The Guy uses his sleuth powers in a gym to find out some hick gang is holding the mob boss's daughter in a cabin. There are some sequences leading up to this involving The Guy using his martial arts skills to defeat the mooks as he gets to the cabin. The fights are done so poorly but I can't do it justice with words, it's something you need to see. After some more nonsense after rescuing the crime boss's daughter (who like the princess he manages to seduce as well), The Guy has a meeting with the mook gang, which includes the man he met in the gym. After their ambush on The Guy goes bad thanks to help from the crime boss's men, The Guy and Gym guy have a lame duel which the crime boss's men and the one of the remaining hicks watch. The Guy demonstrates his martial arts prowess again by knocking the Gym Guy down and then choking him to death. The remaining hick tries to make a run for it then and kicks one of the crime boss's men, and he's rewarded by being shot down in the back as he runs away. So I guess all's well that ends well for The Guy.Some honorary mentions... -The Guy's secretary, who somehow managed to have more character than The Guy with her sass when getting hit on by the crime boss's mooks -The Guy's (former?) girlfriend whose apartment he crashes in to seduce the princess and the crime boss's daughter I've rated this movie low but don't think that there's nothing worth watching here. This is one of those that's great to watch with friends to make fun of and just go with the flow of crappiness here. There are some dull stretches in the movie but not enough to completely ruin things.

When "The Guy from Harlem" was made, the blaxploitation genre was all but dead, and its subsequent release put one of the final nails in the genre's coffin. Though it's not the worst offering of the genre (that would have to be "Blackenstein"), it is all the same a really terrible movie. It goes wrong in every way you can think of. The script is bad, ranging from awkward exposition to the story suddenly changing to another direction midway through. The acting is really amateurish, from sleepwalking performances to people shouting out their lines. If you are looking for action, forget it - there's only one (brief) action sequence in the first half of the movie, and while there's more in the second half, all the action is unexciting and badly done. If you are looking for sex and nudity, the movie also disappoints - there's very little of this material. The direction is third rate, from the director resorting to the same camera angles over and over to the lifeless feeling found in every scene. In fact, that's the biggest problem of the movie - it's really slow moving and boring. 90% of the movie consists of the characters having boring conversations. Oh, the amateurish nature of the movie does occasionally induce a chuckle, but otherwise the movie almost made me fall asleep - and I watched it in the morning!

This is such a terrible movie--as someone wrote before, it's much worse than Ed Wood ever dreamed of. Obviously, no retakes, no editing except in those cases in which all of sudden we switch back to a scene and stuff has happened, so the whole thing looks choppy. Having written that, I have to say that the clothes were so psychedelic and absolutely mod and very polyester with collars out to there (and anyway, how does Al wear blue underwear without its showing through his white pants) that I would watch it again (with the sound off to mask the horrible dialogue and pathetic performances) just for that. I'm not sure how one could write a spoiler on this film--a spoiler would imply some sort of plot. I swear I think they changed Al's office halfway through the film, but I couldn't pay very close attention because I didn't want to make myself sick--like eating too much artificially buttered popcorn. I loved how the receptionist gives out Al's address to "someone from the CIA", but that little tidbit never goes anywhere. Still love the clothes, though.

WARNING: The following review contains abuse of exclamation points.Groooooch! THE WORST MOVIE EVER MADE. Let me repeat this to make sure you get it. THE. WORST. MOVIE. EVER. MADE.Wait. I don't think I got it quite right yet.THE!! WORST!! MOVIE!! EVER!! MADE!!Worse than anything made by Ed Wood (including his "adult" movies)! Worse than anything by Bill Rebane, or Coleman Francis, or Richard Cunha, or Jerry Warren! Worse than MANOS! Worse than THE CREEPING TERROR! Worse than MONSTER-A-GO-GO (okay, maybe not)! Worse than BATTLEFIELD EARTH! Worse than FREDDY GOT FINGERED! Worse than PACIFIC HEIGHTS! Worse than Eddie Murphy's BOOMERANG! Worse than BABY GENIUSES 2! Wow! Stunning! Bad film-making at its worst! An all time low! Almost impossible for it to fail more than it did! Hilarious!Teeth-grindingly awful! Everything about this movie is substandard! The lowest possible budget! Must have been written by a 12-year-old! Worse than amateurish acting! Everyone in this movie is a terrible actor! Leaden pacing! Abysmal shot composition! Poor staging! Terrible sound! (You can hear the camera rolling throughout the movie...) The worst stunts I've ever seen! Most fake fight scene ever filmed! Awful dialog! The least amount of romantic chemistry ever seen between a male and female lead! Lousy music! (Actually the music is the least horrible thing about this movie, but it's still pretty bad.) Ridiculously unlikely plot! Stilted exposition! A woman supposedly from Africa with an American accent! I still have not used enough exclamation points to convince you just HOW BAD this movie truly is!!!! All budding MST3K trainees, attention: this is boot camp for the cynical movie critic. You will be LITERALLY BLOWN AWAY (hyperbole there: you will only be METAPHORICALLY blown away, not literally) by how truly awful, laughably bad and bargain basement this movie really is. Your jaw will hit the floor, your hair will curl, and your eyes will not believe what they are seeing.If you read this comment and all the others regarding this movie, and still take a chance, don't come running back to any of us. You will either be rolling on the floor laughing the uncontrollable laughter of the truly insane or clawing your eyes out if you stick with this bloated cinematic pustule till the end.YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.