"New Jack City" director Mario Van Peebles and scenarists Sy Richardson and Dario Scardapane pay homage to virtually every memorable Hollywood western with "Posse," an elegant inventory of clichés ranging from "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" to "Once Upon a Time in the West." Derivative as all get-out, this R-rated horse opera delivers a little bit of everything, from a search for gold in Cuba to a desperate flight across the mountainous badlands of the American west. Although it borrows from every iconic oater, "Posse" qualifies as one of the best African-American westerns, with a distinguished cast. "White Sands" lenser Peter Menzies Jr.'s stylistic cinematography endows this adventure a mythic, larger-than-life grandeur. Aside from the atmospheric settings, "Posse" benefits from Van Peebles's muscular helming and charismatic performance as the protagonist. He wears a flat-brimmed black hat, has a couple of six-guns holstered in belts crisscrossing his waist. Of course, he can brandish them like chained lightning and plug his adversaries dead-center with every shot. Peebles surrounds himself with a first-rate cast, including Woody Strode, Stephen Baldwin, Tommy 'Tiny' Lister, Blair Underwood, Billy Zane, and Richard Jordan. This rugged, hard-riding horse opera unfolds initially in Cuba during the Spanish-American War in the 1890s. Arrogant U.S. Army Colonel Graham (Billy Zane of "Titanic") orders Jesse Lee (Mario Van Peebles of "Heartbreak Ridge") to take a group of predominantly African-Americans in civilian clothes, infiltrate enemy lines, and bring back whatever he can find. Jesse Lee, Jimmy J. 'Little J' Teeters (Stephen Baldwin of "The Usual Suspects"), and Obobo (Tommy Lister of "Friday") stumble upon a chest of gold coins. When Colonel Graham happens upon them-prepared to shoot them as deserters and confiscate the loot for himself-Jesse shoots him in the eye and escapes with the loot. One of Graham's disgraced African-American troopers, Weezie (Charles Lane of "True Identity") turns against Graham and helps Jesse and company get away from Cuba. They are shipped out in coffins and taken to the mainland in Florida. From there our heroes light out for the Wild West. Graham follows them in hot pursuit with a patch over one eye and greed pumping through his veins. Graham is every inch a dastard, and he maintains his own 'posse' that has earned the name 'the Iron Brigade.' Tirelessly, they track our heroes across the west to an African-American town, Freemanville, fears the angry, racist whites in the nearby town of Cutterstown. Sheriff Bates (Richard Jordan of "Lawman") is one of several men who killed Jesse's father, King David (Robert Hooks of "Trouble Man"), and Jesse has vengeance loaded into his six-shooters. Incredibly enough, the scene that sticks in the memory is the death of Jimmy J. 'Little J' Teeters (Stephen Baldwin) because a gang of angry whites beat 'Little J' to death in front of a crowd of African-Americans. The irony here is revelatory. "Posse" proclaims proudly the exploits of African-Americans on the frontier. Specifically, Jesse's unit Buffalo Soldiers of the U.S. Army's 10th Cavalry Regiment. Similarly, the legendary but largely forgotten Hollywood actor Woody Strode serves as the anonymous narrator who introduces and concludes the movie. Much of what he utters is designed to challenge audiences with a limited acquaintance with African-American history. Indeed, the other thing that sets "Posse" apart from every other western is its theatrical celebration of African-Americans and African-American History. Van Peebles orchestrates some slam-bang action scenes with lots of gunplay and explosions. The explosion that destroys the Gatlin gun in town looks like a napalm strike. As symbols of rank and authority, Zane and Jordan constitute two truly slimy villains. Zane's creepy Graham howls "rewards and retributions" throughout "Posse." Rounding out the cast are Pam Grier, Isaac Hayes, and his own father Melvin Van Peebles. Although its message gets heavy-handed at time, "Posse" ranks as a landmark African-American movie, a solid western, and an entertaining shoot'em up with a touch of inevitable romance.
40 Reviews
Black gold
Prismark1017 April 2015
Posse is a stylish but messy modern yet revisionist black western from actor/director Mario Van Peebles which does suffer from a flabby middle part.
Billy Zane relishes as the sadistic yet curiously camp Colonel Graham who sends some of his men on a mission to rob Spanish gold but intends to kill them all afterwards.
Some of these men are black including Jessie (Van Peebles) and they manage to escape but Graham and his gang are behind them. However Jessie has demons from the past and rides to a town to avenge the death of his preacher father which includes the nasty sheriff (Richard Jordan.)
The film is bold, brash, anachronistic as well as a history lesson on the impact of African Americans on the western genre which has been swept under the carpet of history.
Van Peebles is doing too much and loses focus on the narrative of this film hence why the middle sags before picking up again. Some of the acting is broad The script is uneven, its over directed but Van Peebles manages to still fire the film with enough mischief and helped out by his actors such as Blair Underwood, Woody Strode, Paul Bartel, Richard Jordan and Billy Zane.
Billy Zane relishes as the sadistic yet curiously camp Colonel Graham who sends some of his men on a mission to rob Spanish gold but intends to kill them all afterwards.
Some of these men are black including Jessie (Van Peebles) and they manage to escape but Graham and his gang are behind them. However Jessie has demons from the past and rides to a town to avenge the death of his preacher father which includes the nasty sheriff (Richard Jordan.)
The film is bold, brash, anachronistic as well as a history lesson on the impact of African Americans on the western genre which has been swept under the carpet of history.
Van Peebles is doing too much and loses focus on the narrative of this film hence why the middle sags before picking up again. Some of the acting is broad The script is uneven, its over directed but Van Peebles manages to still fire the film with enough mischief and helped out by his actors such as Blair Underwood, Woody Strode, Paul Bartel, Richard Jordan and Billy Zane.
Some good, some bad, and mostly ugly..
merklekranz6 March 2007
This movie has some great character actors, Isaac Hayes, Woody Strode, Pam Grier, Paul Bartel, and unfortunately they are mostly wasted. The development of the main characters is too rushed, and the story races on at a breakneck pace. "Posse' borrowed liberally from the "spaghetti westerns" ( revenge flashbacks as in "For a Few Dollars More", gattling gun as in "A Fistful of Dollars", coming of the railroad as in "Once Upon a Time in the West") The movie tries to accomplish too much too quickly, and makes one wish that the deliberate pace of the "spaghetti westerns" had also been "borrowed". I rate it a 5.0, very average, and a missed opportunity. - MERK
Good idea badly executed
mfrost71w7 July 2001
An awful film; badly written, badly acted, cliched, hackneyed, dross. The premise is such a good one and a chance to educate about black cowboys but the film is truly dire. It is a curious mix of a bad 1950's Randolph Scott B movie and a bad 1970's spaghetti western. The villains are cardboard, the flashbacks laughable, the dialogue excruciating.
The deliberate anachronisms (such as 'Victorian' rap singers and modern swear words like "motherf****er"), are irritating to the extreme.
A Frankenstein monster that died on the lab table.
The deliberate anachronisms (such as 'Victorian' rap singers and modern swear words like "motherf****er"), are irritating to the extreme.
A Frankenstein monster that died on the lab table.
Finally, a western with originality!!
Vice-528 December 1999
"Posse" is a great movie!! It's basically something nobody has tried before: telling the tales of the first great black cowboys. Mario Van Peebles wears both hats as he works as both an actor and director for this film, about a black infantrymen named Jessie Lee leading his fellow troopers into battling white supremacists and his former commanding officer (played with slimy exception by Billy Zane). "Posse" has everything a good western should have: great gun-fights, cool performances (especially by Van Peebles, Stephen Baldwin, and Big Daddy Kane) and a triumphant ending.
Shoot me now - I cant believe I watched the whole thing
dog_lady0030 November 2008
Warning: Spoilers
This move is bad on so many levels I don't even know where to start. OK - the good points - Peebles is beautiful as a dirty outlaw in black leather. Some of the landscape photography was stunning. That's about it. Oh, and it was a nice touch having the buffalo head above the bar door in Freemanville, I figure it was a nod to the Buffalo Soldiers. The movie starts sort of OK but the characters are so flat, so comic book, so 'much', the bad guys are just over the top bad, I choke trying to describe them further. The Spanish-Cuban-American war was 1895-1898 with America being involved only in April to August of '98. I think the movie said it took place in 1893 (I could be wrong but I don't want to look at it again to check). A big part of this movie hinged on the KKK killing Jessie's daddy. Well boys, the original KKK started in 1865 and was destroyed by President Andrew Johnson in 1871. The Klan wasn't even around during the time period of this movie. Of course the nasty bas**rds got busy again in 1915 and we know the rest of that. BUT for the purpose of the movie it is historically incorrect and that was a major part of the plot. I think I could make myself crazy going into it a lot more so here a few jabs and I'm done. I didn't know that Boyz2Men and other bands like that got their inspiration from New Orleans street singers from the 1890's. I also didn't know that fetish necklaces were all the rage for Sioux women in the 1890's...but then I was surprised to see a bar singer doing jazz while wearing acrylic 1" nails... We just about died laughing and I like a cheesy western more than most people do. Such a waste of talent and money - this really had the chance to show a part of American history that isn't well known. http://www.coax.net/people/lwf/bkcwboy2.htm for some more information. This could have been so good but it was just....bad from 1-10 this gets a 1 instead of a zero because Mario looks good in his hat and there was an Appaloosa horse in the film.
Entertaining blaxploitation western
Leofwine_draca12 March 2019
Warning: Spoilers
POSSE is one of the most entertaining blaxploitation westerns out there, admittedly in a very small sub-genre. This was directed by and stars Mario Van Peebles as a labour of love and it shows. The film has plenty of action in the form of shoot-outs and explosions, all captured in loving slow motion in that typical 1990s bombastic fashion. Even better, Van Peebles has assembled a cast of notable faces including crowd-pleasing old-timers like Isaac Hayes and Woody Strode, so watching becomes very entertaining. Billy Zane and Richard Jordan make for decent pantomime villains and at two hours the pacing is very quick, so there are no slow spots here.
Terrible Western - 3 stars for effort
gordonb-5958725 September 2019
The most interesting part was how the movie's horse trainers got horses to fall on their left side so many times. Every time there was a mounted gun battle, boom, another horse took a dive left. Bullets must have been real cheap because these "cowboys" shoot hundreds of rounds and never seem to run out. During one fight, our hero fires his two six shooters 17 times without reloading. Pretty neat trick. And for some reason, he spins his revolvers every time he holsters one. But that's Hollywood. But when 11 bad guys ride into town and 16 get shot, now that's show business. The movie is just bad. I gave it 3 stars just for effort.
Update in 11/2020. I tried watching this again. I just got worse. Anyone giving this movie more than a 3 has no concept of reality.
Good formula western with twist
thehumanduvet16 April 2002
A good old-fashioned flight-and-revenge western, given a twist and a touch of gravitas by injecting a little black social history into its plot. Lead by Mario Van Peebles, who does OK, the gang of misfits on the run from Billy Zane's (seemingly unstoppable) army bigwig all acquit themselves well, their adventures plausible yet fun and exciting. There're some nice moody flashback scenes setting up the hero's character and backstory, a good shoot-out ending as our heroes defend the town from greedy white landgrabbers, and even Stephen Baldwin isn't bad in this enjoyable, quite powerful western.
Posse
phubbs6 August 2014
Warning: Spoilers
Interesting idea to focus on the forgotten black cowboys of the west but unfortunately Peebles doesn't do this age any justice with this bad embarrassing wannabe mess.
The problem here is Peebles has gone down the silly shoot 'em up route where maybe a more sensible approach could of worked wonders. The other problem is the film is pretty close to B-movie territory with a very average D-list cast and poor looking action sequences. Plus every single western cliché has been thrown in alongside every single modern action flick cliché too, its like a John Woo movie in the wild west.
Its a clichéd western of course as you would expect but it all looks slightly cheap with bad editing. Other things spoil its potential such as certain moments where characters use the swear word motherf*cker which I doubt is accurate for the time methinks. Also the way Peebles has clearly tried to make himself look as super cool as possible is cringeworthy. His costume looks like its from a graphic novel of a dark brooding anti-hero whilst everyone else looks relatively accurate for the era. Talk about giving yourself the best role with the best looking duds.
Billy Zane does add some class and laughs into the situation but his character is so stupid. He basically plays a regular out n out villain, with redneck tendencies naturally, who just happens to be wearing civil war era attire. This character could be placed in any action movie in any setting and it wouldn't make any difference, he would still be exactly the same and the film would be exactly the same. He's just a plain villain, he has nothing to do with the era he's placed in other than the fact he's wearing civil war uniform. A good evil turn from Zane sure but the character is such a stereotypical Hollywood bad guy.
Basically Peebles has gone for the slick rock n roll 'Young Guns' approach mixed with silly action movie clichés...but has failed on both counts. A more realistic film could have been a winner as this subject hasn't been touched upon much in Hollywood. Nail in the coffin for me was the quite hideously out of place rap track over the end credits, errr...no.
4/10
The problem here is Peebles has gone down the silly shoot 'em up route where maybe a more sensible approach could of worked wonders. The other problem is the film is pretty close to B-movie territory with a very average D-list cast and poor looking action sequences. Plus every single western cliché has been thrown in alongside every single modern action flick cliché too, its like a John Woo movie in the wild west.
Its a clichéd western of course as you would expect but it all looks slightly cheap with bad editing. Other things spoil its potential such as certain moments where characters use the swear word motherf*cker which I doubt is accurate for the time methinks. Also the way Peebles has clearly tried to make himself look as super cool as possible is cringeworthy. His costume looks like its from a graphic novel of a dark brooding anti-hero whilst everyone else looks relatively accurate for the era. Talk about giving yourself the best role with the best looking duds.
Billy Zane does add some class and laughs into the situation but his character is so stupid. He basically plays a regular out n out villain, with redneck tendencies naturally, who just happens to be wearing civil war era attire. This character could be placed in any action movie in any setting and it wouldn't make any difference, he would still be exactly the same and the film would be exactly the same. He's just a plain villain, he has nothing to do with the era he's placed in other than the fact he's wearing civil war uniform. A good evil turn from Zane sure but the character is such a stereotypical Hollywood bad guy.
Basically Peebles has gone for the slick rock n roll 'Young Guns' approach mixed with silly action movie clichés...but has failed on both counts. A more realistic film could have been a winner as this subject hasn't been touched upon much in Hollywood. Nail in the coffin for me was the quite hideously out of place rap track over the end credits, errr...no.
4/10
FANTASTIC
ajordan-416585 December 2018
Warning: Spoilers
This is a view of African-Americans going West to leave the Post Civil War South. It explains how L.A. became such a popular destination to start a new life. Jessie Lee played by the Director Mario Van Peoples does a great job of eventually bringing his team together - after escaping the Spanish American War with Gold. They are trying to leave behind their past; the villain played by Billie Zane attempted to have Jessie Lee's squad killed after stealing the Spanish Gold for him. It's a great effort to show how sometimes the only way to counter act violence is to wipeout the bad guys. Great score & soundtrack bring the movie to life. After the death of his father Jessie Lee takes revenge against all those who forced him into the Army or death. The Good Guys win as the Bad guys (known & unknown) all go down. His Native American girlfriend Sally Richardson is MOTIVATION - to Shoot'em Up Bang, Bang - everyone in his way to FREEDOM. Karma is true & you cannot hold a Good Cowboy down forever.
Where are the fiddles? Where are the banjos? Anachronisms and vanity keep this from being a good film.
mozli11 October 2008
Warning: Spoilers
I wanted very much to enjoy this film. When it was released I wasn't interested in watching any westerns. I'd come back to it because I believe Mario Van Peebles has a great film in him. Unfortunately, this one is not it. It is ambitious and the multi-racial cast gives it a good go. The various skill and talent levels aren't blended correctly to make an organic, cohesive whole. A shame because its clear that Robert Hooks is trying really hard as is Billy Zane. Seeing old school players like Lawrence Cook and Pam Grier trying to make sense out of their brief story arcs was a chore. The biggest problem for me was Mario at some point decided to make it a vanity project because it started out a decent, 40's style western(albeit with nudity and some extreme violence)that morphed into a weak Clint Eastwood imitation. The contributions of rap star Tone Loc were pitiful at best but Big Daddy Kane worked harder and his work was credible. Richard Jordan and Blair Underwood are so intriguing together that they are almost in a different, better movie. There are a lot of moments like that in this film where you sit frustrated at the editing and continuity decisions made by the director and the cinematographer. What is clear is that the script is pointing to a much, much better film than what is being delivered. Oh, BTW, the word 'motherfucker' has its origins in the antebellum slave culture of North America. I've seen many complaints here about the usage of that epithet and how it shouldn't have been used during that era(1898). Research the word and you will discover its bleak and stark history. If you were a fan of the show DEADWOOD you would have noticed that the character Swearingen peppered his remarks with the word and it even popped up in the film Heaven's Gate. I have to give it up again to the Billy Zane for his spectacular death scene. I didn't have that big of a problem with the New Jack Swing musical stylings imposed on the film's soundtrack but I did take issue with the lack of banjos and fiddles.
A blown opportunity for greatness.
A blown opportunity for greatness.
Loud and Flashy, Which Works Against Itself
bkkaz1 July 2022
The problem with Posse -- in addition to be too talky for a movie that seems to follow so many western tropes -- is that it wants to paint everything with a chintzy gloss that's way over the top. Now, I'm not a fan of the dirty, dusty, bland westerns that have been popular the past 25 years, either. I prefer the John Wayne variety and occasionally something like High Noon. But this movie tries to out-fantasy even those technicolor ones from the 50s and 60s that made the west seem like it wasn't just a bunch of scroungy, flea-bitten cast offs busy shooting each other in the street when not trying to brutalize People of Color.
So, what's good? Well, there's a fair amount of attention to detail, including the late 1800s Army uniforms at the beginning. Much of what we think about the cavalry in the 1860s and 70s really was a reflection of dress from decades later. The acting is reasonably good -- I say this not because anyone is bad but because the ADHD directing and script doesn't call for anything close to nuance or subtlety for scenes. This is one of those movies where you get a headache because all the characters move at a frenetic pace, like a room full of noisy, restless children all competing for attention from the adults.
There's a revenge story here -- we've seen it a million times before. The funny thing is something like The Outlaw Josey Wales does it and a bunch of people go crazy. This movie does it and they act like it is foreign territory. Of course, there may be obvious reasons.
The movie also tries to have a social conscience. The problem is that like everything else, it's over the top, to the degree that the dialogue often sounds more like a lesson than talk. I get that films like these have the double duty of trying to evoke in an audience understanding that some either pitifully lack or others are just far too aware of (to their suffering), but if everyone just trusted the story more, a lot of the dialogue wouldn't be necessary.
Anyway, as far as 1990s westerns go, this is no worse than, say, The Quick and the Dead. They look a lot like each other and were just as over the top. The funny thing, though, is the critics liked that one. Not so much this one. Golly, I wonder what's the difference?
So, what's good? Well, there's a fair amount of attention to detail, including the late 1800s Army uniforms at the beginning. Much of what we think about the cavalry in the 1860s and 70s really was a reflection of dress from decades later. The acting is reasonably good -- I say this not because anyone is bad but because the ADHD directing and script doesn't call for anything close to nuance or subtlety for scenes. This is one of those movies where you get a headache because all the characters move at a frenetic pace, like a room full of noisy, restless children all competing for attention from the adults.
There's a revenge story here -- we've seen it a million times before. The funny thing is something like The Outlaw Josey Wales does it and a bunch of people go crazy. This movie does it and they act like it is foreign territory. Of course, there may be obvious reasons.
The movie also tries to have a social conscience. The problem is that like everything else, it's over the top, to the degree that the dialogue often sounds more like a lesson than talk. I get that films like these have the double duty of trying to evoke in an audience understanding that some either pitifully lack or others are just far too aware of (to their suffering), but if everyone just trusted the story more, a lot of the dialogue wouldn't be necessary.
Anyway, as far as 1990s westerns go, this is no worse than, say, The Quick and the Dead. They look a lot like each other and were just as over the top. The funny thing, though, is the critics liked that one. Not so much this one. Golly, I wonder what's the difference?
Good Concept, but it falls short
pv719892 July 2002
When I heard about and saw the trailers for "Posse" I was eagerly waiting for the film's release. African-Americans made up fully a third of all cowboys in the Old West, but were virtually non-existent in Hollywood's Old West, except as train porters or mammies. The only real black cowboy seen by most Americans was Woody Strode, thanks to John Ford ("Sergeant Rutledge," "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, "How the West Was Won"), Richard Brooks ("The Professionals") and Italian filmmakers ("Once Upon a Time in the West," "The Revengers," "The Unholy Four").
"Posse," written, produced and directed by Mario Van Peebles, had promise. Unfortunately, it gets bogged down by cliches and a tired storyline. A rousing climax almost saves the film, though.
The movie begins with a stark history lesson about the true accomplishments of blacks in the Old West, as told to Reginald and Warren Hudlin by an old man (the legendary Woody Strode). He then segues into the fictitious story of Jesse Lee...
Lee (Mario Van Peebles) and his men are getting cut to pieces by the Spanish during the Spanish-American War while their commanding officer (a slimy, but effective Billy Zane) drinks Cognac miles away. Lee complains about the conditions and is arrested. Zane later promises to exonerate him and his men if they will pull off a mission for him -- namely to steal valuable documents from the Spanish. Stephen Baldwin is thrown in with Lee's gang because he's a troublemaker Zane wants to get rid of. The group pulls off the mission, but, instead of finding documents, they find gold bullion. They also find Zane and his cohorts waiting at the rendezvous point with guns to finish them off. Unfortunately for Zane, his men are like Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders -- long on bravado, short on skill. Lee's men, having been in combat, get the drop on Zane, kill most of his men and flee back to America as wanted men. (By the way, the method they use to get out of Cuba and back to America is original, but very creepy).
The middle part of the film is spent showing Lee and his men (rapper Tone Loc, Baldwin, a whiny aide and a few spares) heading to New Orleans, where they meet up with Big Daddy Kane. They also run into Zane, who has been tracking them. The whole tracking plotline is hard to believe (remember how long it took John Wayne to track down Natalie Wood in "The Searchers"?), but it makes for good shootouts.
Eventually, Lee and his men make it back to Lee's hometown, a black township full of freedmen. Such townships were numerous in the Old West, but survived only at the whim of white county officials (watch "Rosewood" for an example of what they often suffered from). The town is run by Richard Jordan as a greedy sheriff in cahoots with some crooked county officials. Throw in Zane and his own posse, along with a Gatling gun and you get the rousing climax.
Mario Van Peebles is not much of an actor, but he has enough range and skill to carry the burden of being Jesse Lee. Baldwin is not quite up to par with brothers Alec and Daniel, but he holds his own, especially when he meets his demise at the hands of fellow whites. I liked Big Daddy Kane's soft-spoken, but proud and defiant, role as Father Time and the way he kept looking at his pocket watch before doing anything. Tone Loc was a waste, though, since he kept rapping like it was 1998 instead of 1898.
The town basically had one purpose and that was to show off an impressive cast of black stars -- Melvin Van Peebles, Pam Grier, Reginald Vel Johnson and Nipsey Russell, among others. Of course, having a cameo meant biting the bullet (literally) in the finale.
By the way, another problem for "Posse" was its setting. Many contributions and accomplishments by African-Americans came during the years following the Civil War, from 1865-1890. Black soldiers became the vaunted Buffalo Soldiers who protected white settlers and tracked down Geronimo. Freed blacks moved west in droves as homesteaders and as cowboys on cattle drives because many white men had been killed or maimed during the war. Black townships sprang up in Oklahoma and Arkansas. Black lawmen like the legendary Bass Reeves were in abundance, especially in Oklahoma and Texas. By 1898, blacks were in a decline (despite their bravery in the Spanish-American War) that would not be reversed until World War I. Surely, Van Peebles could have drawn up a storyline set between 1865 and 1890.
"Posse" has a lot going for it. It's too bad Mario Van Peebles went for cliches, shootouts and tired storylines meant to sell tickets rather than tell a good story. "Unforgiven" and "Tombstone" showed you can do both.
"Posse," written, produced and directed by Mario Van Peebles, had promise. Unfortunately, it gets bogged down by cliches and a tired storyline. A rousing climax almost saves the film, though.
The movie begins with a stark history lesson about the true accomplishments of blacks in the Old West, as told to Reginald and Warren Hudlin by an old man (the legendary Woody Strode). He then segues into the fictitious story of Jesse Lee...
Lee (Mario Van Peebles) and his men are getting cut to pieces by the Spanish during the Spanish-American War while their commanding officer (a slimy, but effective Billy Zane) drinks Cognac miles away. Lee complains about the conditions and is arrested. Zane later promises to exonerate him and his men if they will pull off a mission for him -- namely to steal valuable documents from the Spanish. Stephen Baldwin is thrown in with Lee's gang because he's a troublemaker Zane wants to get rid of. The group pulls off the mission, but, instead of finding documents, they find gold bullion. They also find Zane and his cohorts waiting at the rendezvous point with guns to finish them off. Unfortunately for Zane, his men are like Teddy Roosevelt's Rough Riders -- long on bravado, short on skill. Lee's men, having been in combat, get the drop on Zane, kill most of his men and flee back to America as wanted men. (By the way, the method they use to get out of Cuba and back to America is original, but very creepy).
The middle part of the film is spent showing Lee and his men (rapper Tone Loc, Baldwin, a whiny aide and a few spares) heading to New Orleans, where they meet up with Big Daddy Kane. They also run into Zane, who has been tracking them. The whole tracking plotline is hard to believe (remember how long it took John Wayne to track down Natalie Wood in "The Searchers"?), but it makes for good shootouts.
Eventually, Lee and his men make it back to Lee's hometown, a black township full of freedmen. Such townships were numerous in the Old West, but survived only at the whim of white county officials (watch "Rosewood" for an example of what they often suffered from). The town is run by Richard Jordan as a greedy sheriff in cahoots with some crooked county officials. Throw in Zane and his own posse, along with a Gatling gun and you get the rousing climax.
Mario Van Peebles is not much of an actor, but he has enough range and skill to carry the burden of being Jesse Lee. Baldwin is not quite up to par with brothers Alec and Daniel, but he holds his own, especially when he meets his demise at the hands of fellow whites. I liked Big Daddy Kane's soft-spoken, but proud and defiant, role as Father Time and the way he kept looking at his pocket watch before doing anything. Tone Loc was a waste, though, since he kept rapping like it was 1998 instead of 1898.
The town basically had one purpose and that was to show off an impressive cast of black stars -- Melvin Van Peebles, Pam Grier, Reginald Vel Johnson and Nipsey Russell, among others. Of course, having a cameo meant biting the bullet (literally) in the finale.
By the way, another problem for "Posse" was its setting. Many contributions and accomplishments by African-Americans came during the years following the Civil War, from 1865-1890. Black soldiers became the vaunted Buffalo Soldiers who protected white settlers and tracked down Geronimo. Freed blacks moved west in droves as homesteaders and as cowboys on cattle drives because many white men had been killed or maimed during the war. Black townships sprang up in Oklahoma and Arkansas. Black lawmen like the legendary Bass Reeves were in abundance, especially in Oklahoma and Texas. By 1898, blacks were in a decline (despite their bravery in the Spanish-American War) that would not be reversed until World War I. Surely, Van Peebles could have drawn up a storyline set between 1865 and 1890.
"Posse" has a lot going for it. It's too bad Mario Van Peebles went for cliches, shootouts and tired storylines meant to sell tickets rather than tell a good story. "Unforgiven" and "Tombstone" showed you can do both.
Great History made into a pointless cartoon
NanoFrog19 June 2011
The best and greatest thing about this film, the only thing, is an opening narrative by the great Woody Strode, who was a unique and ground breaking African American actor, who was also 75 per cent Native American. He sets us up with the premise that there are many great stories of the African Americans who moved west, built towns, became cowboys, and whose stories are never told. From this magical and promising beginning we enter a cartoon, clichéd, pointless parody of parody and what could have been a great and serious tale is just another really bad movie. Casting, one note comic actors like Mario Van Peebles as the lead is the first sign that no one here wanted to make a serious film. He is the type of actor that makes one praise the on and off switch on the video player. As many other commentators have noted, this was such a great idea for a film, yet the actors and the director failed, and failed absolutely.
Critique of Posse
Corey_B9 December 2000
I enjoyed this movie extremely. It was the last great Mario Van Peebles movie I know of. It had a hip-hop old west flavor to it. Big Daddy Kane and Tone Loc had major parts. It shouldn't have won any Oscars, but it was enjoyable all the same.
Vile, Racist Rubbish
ccthemovieman-12 February 2008
Wow, what a racist, profane piece of celluloid garbage, and what an insult to the great genre of Westerns.
Exploitive? Sex scenes abound, profanity abounds, violence and gore abounds.....everything that gives modern movies such a good name, especially among those who prefer classic-era movies. This is the kind of sleaze that gives the old folks ammunition against today's films.
Somehow I just can't picture nude male bathing scenes in Randolph Scott or Gene Autrey films. Nor can I picture hearing "motherf---er!" exclaimed here and there. I sincerely doubt that word was even around over 100 years ago. Yet, the f-word is so prevalent here you'd think you were watching a story centered in today's urban areas, not the old west of the 1800s.
Prejudice? Well, what if all the white characters were good guys and every black person was the nasty, brutal villain? Do you think someone might complain about a racist movie? Home come we don't hear an outcry when the reverse - as demonstrated in this film - is shown in hundreds of theaters across the country?
Mario Van Peeples wrote, directed and starred in this bomb. Remember that name. Apparently, he is the "Ed Wood" of today's filmmakers. Even Spike Lee wouldn't be this racist. You can't get much worse than this movie.
Exploitive? Sex scenes abound, profanity abounds, violence and gore abounds.....everything that gives modern movies such a good name, especially among those who prefer classic-era movies. This is the kind of sleaze that gives the old folks ammunition against today's films.
Somehow I just can't picture nude male bathing scenes in Randolph Scott or Gene Autrey films. Nor can I picture hearing "motherf---er!" exclaimed here and there. I sincerely doubt that word was even around over 100 years ago. Yet, the f-word is so prevalent here you'd think you were watching a story centered in today's urban areas, not the old west of the 1800s.
Prejudice? Well, what if all the white characters were good guys and every black person was the nasty, brutal villain? Do you think someone might complain about a racist movie? Home come we don't hear an outcry when the reverse - as demonstrated in this film - is shown in hundreds of theaters across the country?
Mario Van Peeples wrote, directed and starred in this bomb. Remember that name. Apparently, he is the "Ed Wood" of today's filmmakers. Even Spike Lee wouldn't be this racist. You can't get much worse than this movie.
Peebles misses a trick but it's still entertaining
Maverick19628 November 2021
Mario Van Peebles, a film maker not previously known to me, comes up with the money to make a western that bangs the drum for all the unrecognised black cowboys in the old west but ends up just making another shoot 'em up rip roaring çowboy film we've seen many times before. Maybe his backers wouldn't let him make something more serious in case audiences turned away. He makes something of a point about the suppression of black folk and native Americans but ultimately just ends up with a spaghetti type fantasy. It's great fun with very watchable cinematography and endless action and some fair characterisations. Stephen Baldwin in particular is a hoot. Billy Zane is a cavalry officer intent on tracking down the black posse of the title, led by Van Peebles and Richard Jordan as a corrupt sheriff also has the same mission. I think the idea was to bring some attention to the poor treatment of minority races in America but other films have been much more effective in that message that I have seen like In The Heat Of The Night, Sergeant Rutledge and Guess Who's Coming To Dinner. These are old movies now but there are newer ones like Fences and Hidden Figures that I've seen recently that are thought provoking too. I doubt if Posse hit the mark but it is very entertaining.
Worst movie of ALL TIME!
jefyou18 January 1999
This is the worst movie of ALL TIME! It's one of those that is so ridiculous and the acting so bad that you turn off the video 1/3 into it so that you can use your time for better purposes like cleaning the toilet. If you actually watch the whole thing, GOD help you.
Great Action That Needed a Better Narration
eric26200311 February 2017
Warning: Spoilers
In many Western lore, cowboy legends about lawmen, outlaws, and life in the Old Frontier period have been mostly centered around Caucasians. Very obscure do we ever examine the Wild West where African-Americans have the chance to tell their own tales about them running their own cities, laying down their own laws and fighting off against outlaws who want to stir trouble in their neck of the woods. There's not much reading material about this subject and very little Hollywood movies are ever made about African-Americans striving in the rough scenery in the Old Frontier.
"Posse" was a pivotal step to tell a great story in this compelling and refreshing story that is loaded with originality. It had potential to be a really good story, sadly director Mario Van Peebles tends to go overboard by practically rubbing the story right in-your-face to get his message across. At times the historical references become so overly done, the actual story becomes secondary which can be very distracting and disjointed. It may look good for a documentary, but for a movie, it makes the entire story very thin. Aside from that the quick-cuts from scenes are very distracting and the noisy backgrounds are also too loud that it upstages the dialogue provided.
Van Peebles is without a doubt an excellent director. He was outstanding in the 1991 film "New Jack City." So where are the flaws in "Posse"? Did he feel that the dryness from the basic story needed some much-needed tweaking on the visual references? Did he just lean towards the style and forgot that a story to develop we also need substancebecause were weren't getting any here? Set after the Spanish-American War U.S. Army 10th Calvary Regiment led by Jessie Lee (Van Peebles)joins forces with Weezie (Charles Lane), Angel (Tone Loc), Obobo (TinyLister) and Caucasian ally Little J (Stephen Baldwin) courageously step up to winback their city from the corruption from racist outlaw Colonel Graham (Billy Zane). The fight scenes feel very anti-climactic and the soundtrack just carries on like it's a an overlong music video.
Once the war is over, the Calvary heads home to Freemanville, where Jessie grew up. Only to realize that his community has changed and is now been taken over by racist neighbors and a law enforcement that caters to white people. Therefore, the posse joins forces to restore their town and to wipe out the corruption.
For a story of this magnitude, it had a lot of great material for a an interesting and provocative Western story that has never been looked upon. But instead we get a simplified, lazily scripted visually-laden shoot-em-up fight between good against evil. The story line is never in full focus and the characters are not that easy to care about because the development is poorly structured. It's just too dependent on action but it's all without purpose.
You've heard of the quote, "too many cooks spoil the broth". Well Van Peebles casts a plethora of big name stars from Isaac Hayes to Blair Underwood from Pam Grier to Nipsy Russell. Well as big as those names are, they don't really have much to do here and that an extra would've been better cast in their roles.
When all the dust settles all the message we get is that white people then and now continually deprive the black man from equal opportunity, no matter how much they have succeeded over years. The freely utilized preachy ways were handed out to what the story failed to offer. If these closing messages were with us the whole time, "Posse" would've been a better film instead of succumbing to an endless array of sloganeering.
"Posse" was a pivotal step to tell a great story in this compelling and refreshing story that is loaded with originality. It had potential to be a really good story, sadly director Mario Van Peebles tends to go overboard by practically rubbing the story right in-your-face to get his message across. At times the historical references become so overly done, the actual story becomes secondary which can be very distracting and disjointed. It may look good for a documentary, but for a movie, it makes the entire story very thin. Aside from that the quick-cuts from scenes are very distracting and the noisy backgrounds are also too loud that it upstages the dialogue provided.
Van Peebles is without a doubt an excellent director. He was outstanding in the 1991 film "New Jack City." So where are the flaws in "Posse"? Did he feel that the dryness from the basic story needed some much-needed tweaking on the visual references? Did he just lean towards the style and forgot that a story to develop we also need substancebecause were weren't getting any here? Set after the Spanish-American War U.S. Army 10th Calvary Regiment led by Jessie Lee (Van Peebles)joins forces with Weezie (Charles Lane), Angel (Tone Loc), Obobo (TinyLister) and Caucasian ally Little J (Stephen Baldwin) courageously step up to winback their city from the corruption from racist outlaw Colonel Graham (Billy Zane). The fight scenes feel very anti-climactic and the soundtrack just carries on like it's a an overlong music video.
Once the war is over, the Calvary heads home to Freemanville, where Jessie grew up. Only to realize that his community has changed and is now been taken over by racist neighbors and a law enforcement that caters to white people. Therefore, the posse joins forces to restore their town and to wipe out the corruption.
For a story of this magnitude, it had a lot of great material for a an interesting and provocative Western story that has never been looked upon. But instead we get a simplified, lazily scripted visually-laden shoot-em-up fight between good against evil. The story line is never in full focus and the characters are not that easy to care about because the development is poorly structured. It's just too dependent on action but it's all without purpose.
You've heard of the quote, "too many cooks spoil the broth". Well Van Peebles casts a plethora of big name stars from Isaac Hayes to Blair Underwood from Pam Grier to Nipsy Russell. Well as big as those names are, they don't really have much to do here and that an extra would've been better cast in their roles.
When all the dust settles all the message we get is that white people then and now continually deprive the black man from equal opportunity, no matter how much they have succeeded over years. The freely utilized preachy ways were handed out to what the story failed to offer. If these closing messages were with us the whole time, "Posse" would've been a better film instead of succumbing to an endless array of sloganeering.
Absolute Joke
view_and_review1 September 2018
I rarely give a 1 star rating because I try real hard not to. I look for any reason I can to give higher than a 1 rating because this is someone's work. Someone or someones took the time to put this movie together. Sure, it may not be the best movie but they took the time to make it so that has to account for something.
Not today.
Posse was bad on multiple levels: the story, the script, the acting, the camerawork. I can't believe it's considered a western. Western is one of my favorite genres and this does not belong amongst westerns. This movie was to westerns what Donald Trump is to diplomacy.
I suffered through this movie until a certain scene. This scene had me laughing out loud which was somewhat miraculous considering how royally upset I was with the film til this point.
It was a showdown in the town of Freemanville and a corrupt unit of the army had brought in a Gatling gun. Jesse Lee (Mario Van Peebles), the hero, has a genius plan to disable the gun. He's going to use dynamite. Not a bad idea Jesse. How are you going to get close enough with the dynamite to light it and toss it near the Gatling gun without getting shot up? Strap it to an arrow?
No. He lights the dynamite wick, puts the lit dynamite stick in his mouth (yes his mouth), shoots a man, mounts a horse using the dead man as a human shield, then gallops towards the men reloading the Gatling gun, shoots the two stooges at the Gatling gun, and as his horse leaps in the air he tosses the dynamite on the platform with the gun just in time for the dynamite to blow.
ROFL. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me right now? You've got to be kidding me.
At that point I decided that I could no longer fight the one rating. Mario Van Peebles was dead set on getting a one star rating from me no matter how hard I tried to grade on a curve. So I will oblige.
Not today.
Posse was bad on multiple levels: the story, the script, the acting, the camerawork. I can't believe it's considered a western. Western is one of my favorite genres and this does not belong amongst westerns. This movie was to westerns what Donald Trump is to diplomacy.
I suffered through this movie until a certain scene. This scene had me laughing out loud which was somewhat miraculous considering how royally upset I was with the film til this point.
It was a showdown in the town of Freemanville and a corrupt unit of the army had brought in a Gatling gun. Jesse Lee (Mario Van Peebles), the hero, has a genius plan to disable the gun. He's going to use dynamite. Not a bad idea Jesse. How are you going to get close enough with the dynamite to light it and toss it near the Gatling gun without getting shot up? Strap it to an arrow?
No. He lights the dynamite wick, puts the lit dynamite stick in his mouth (yes his mouth), shoots a man, mounts a horse using the dead man as a human shield, then gallops towards the men reloading the Gatling gun, shoots the two stooges at the Gatling gun, and as his horse leaps in the air he tosses the dynamite on the platform with the gun just in time for the dynamite to blow.
ROFL. Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me right now? You've got to be kidding me.
At that point I decided that I could no longer fight the one rating. Mario Van Peebles was dead set on getting a one star rating from me no matter how hard I tried to grade on a curve. So I will oblige.
Not the best - but it's a start.....
XavierLA14 March 1999
Ok, maybe Posse can't compare to other popular cowboy/western movies. But that's because it didn't have the FUNDING those movies had. Obviously, whenever you want to produce a story such as this one, focusing on African American historical involvement (and NO, servants and 'mammies' are not historical involvement), Hollywood isn't going to be too supportive. And believe me they weren't. The producers and actors sacrificed a lot of 'out of pocket' expenses to make "Posse", just so that the story could be told. I think that alone is commendable. Posse may not be Oscar material (and they don't like Black media too much either), but it is a start. It is entertaining, and it introduces us to the black cowboy, a character most of us are unfamiliar with.
Quite a Bit of Action
Uriah4316 July 2013
After a brief introduction, this movie begins during the Spanish-American War in which the all-black 10th Cavalry is encountering fierce resistance from the Spanish forces. The leader of the 10th Cavalry, "Jessie Lee" (Mario Van Peebles), along with a handful of men, is then sent on a secret mission behind enemy lines to capture a gold shipment. But when they return they are double-crossed by their maniacal commander, "Colonel Graham" (Billy Zane). A gunfight ensues and they are able to escape and sneak aboard a ship back to the United States. However, Colonel Graham has no intention of allowing Jesse Lee's small group to escape so easily with all of that gold. At any rate, rather than revealing the entire plot I will just say that this film has quite a bit of action and I enjoyed it for the most part. However, I must also add that it relied too heavily on building a mystique around Jesse Lee to the detriment of everything else. That is not to say that other actors weren't allowed sufficient time on screen. If anything I thought Stephen Baldwin (as "Little J Teeters") and Big Daddy Kane ("Father Time") put on excellent performances. I might also add that I thought Salli Richardson-Whitfield (as "Lana") looked absolutely stunning in her role. But some of the scenes involving Mario Van Peebles went a bit overboard and seemed too heavy-handed in my view. In any case, this isn't a bad western film and I rate it as slightly above average.
Mercy! How can it be so bad!
gkhege6 July 2019
I'm an old man who has been watching western movies since 1954. This has to be one of the worst cowboy movie ever made. It's like someone said, " let's find every black actor who has ever walked by a camera and but them all together and try and convince the audience this is a good film.
Wow! talk about poor acting and directing? Let's face it, it takes a special actor, regardless of skin color, to play the part of a believable cowboy.
I was looking for Snoop dog to ride up on a buffalo or something. Jim Brown, yes, but this group could never convince anyone they could spend one night in cowboy land.
Even the naked ladies couldn't get my attention in this one. Terrible, terrible movie.
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