DeathofaSnowman

Death of a Snowman (1978)

This is an interesting movie. It is another ‘70s Blaxploitation movie, but unlike the others that I’ve seen it was shot in South Africa with a cast pulled from that country. Having been alive and remembering apartheid and how that country was run I’m shocked that this movie was made. But is the movie any good? Lets talk about that, but first let me lay out the plot.

There is a group of vigilantes that are killing all the criminals in a South African city. They claim to be trying to clean up crime so that the money that is drained from the neighborhoods can instead be channeled to feed and clothe the children. They keep contacting a reporter named Steve, giving him advanced notice of their “hits” and using him to publicize their goals. Meanwhile Steve is working with his friend, a police officer, to try and track them down. Though he is torn because he understands and supports what they are trying to accomplish. Only it turns out that not everything is on the up and up with the vigilantes and the more Steve digs the less he likes what he finds.

As I’ve already mentioned I found the setting and where the movie was made to be really interesting. I also found the story to be a nice variation on what many of the Blaxploitation movies were all about (keeping the “man” out of the neighborhood). But the movie has some serious issues. The story keeps jumping around between the characters and because of that can be hard to follow. One minute we are following Steve, then we see a conversation at the police station, then suddenly we see characters talking that haven’t been introduced yet. And that is another thing that bothered me. The movie eventually connects the characters together, but not before we get scenes that don’t make much sense. Oh and when they do introduce an interesting character (like the hit man) he is killed off just as he gets interesting. Hell thru most of the movie the character of Steve’s police officer friend is vital to telling the story, and then he disappears over the last 20 minutes or so of the movie never to be seen again. It was stuff like this that just kills the movie for me.

Time to talk about the technical bits of the movie. This is a mixed bag for me. I thought that the car chases and bullet hits were pulled off nicely. The choreography of the action sequences and shootouts worked well. That is except for the big showdown at the end of Death of a Snowman. The last fight is really dark and almost impossible to follow. This is complicated further by the editor deciding to cut between several fights really abruptly and only staying with them for a few seconds. I totally didn’t know what was happening, which was a real drag.

Death of a Snowman is an interesting movie, but not one that I can see myself spending time watching again. But if you are a fan of the Blaxploitation subgenre then you will want to check this out at least once.

2 out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer