Film of the Week: Coffy (1973)

Coffy is one of the finest examples of a blaxploitation film. Pam Grier, the queen of this genre, stars as a young nurse turned vigilante bent on destroying the drug trade in the african-american community after her younger sister became an addict. This film was rare for the time in which it was made. It had become both normal and acceepted to glorify drug use in blaxploitation films, but Coffy took a rather unfashionable turn to carry a strong anti-drug message. Although this film is often overlooked by major critics, it is a major film from a lesser known, but still important, genre of American filmmaking.