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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Salesrank: 42296
Released: January 9, 2001 |
| Our Price: $10.48 |
| Used Price: $5.22 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Soul Cinema superstar Pam Grier leads an outta-sight, all-star cast, including Yaphet Kotto (Alien), Eartha Kitt (TV's original Catwoman), Carl Weathers (RockyÂ(r)), Scatman Crothers (The Shining), Ted Lange ("The Love Boat"), Jim Backus ("Gilligan's Island") and Godfrey Cambridge (Cotton Comes to Harlem) in this ultra-slick, pulse-pumping actioner that brings a foxy camerawoman into the focus of danger! When photographer Friday Foster (Grier) unwittingly uncovers a white supremecist plot to knock off all of the country's top black leaders, she andher free-wheelin', trouble-dealin' P.I. friend, Hawkins (Kotto), go on a mission to stomp the killers' plans! From the backstage murders at a righteous fashion show to a pedal-to-the-metal car chase from a funeralin a hearse(!)this shutterbuggin' babe will go anywhere and do anything to expose the corruptiononly this time, the shooting isn't just with a camera!
Description of Friday Foster:
Pam Grier is Friday Foster, a photographer's assistant at a glamour magazine assigned to cover the secret arrival of a reclusive black millionaire (Thalmus Rasula). "Just get your cute little behind out there and take your little pictures and goddammit don't get involved!" Of course she does: The scene erupts into an attempted assassination, and Friday digs up a conspiracy that reaches to Washington, D.C., and involves sassy, flamboyant fashion designer Eartha Kitt, lascivious but good-at-heart minister Scatman Crothers, and a powerful black congressman. Yaphet Kotto costars as a good-natured P.I. she tags along as a sidekick and bodyguard, and Carl Weathers makes a strong impression as a silent but deadly hit man systematically silencing potential witnesses. The script feels more like a comic book than a movie (it was inspired by a newspaper comic strip), with Grier playing Friday as a plucky, resourceful amateur, stealing cars and stalking killers armed with nothing but a fully loaded camera. She's better as the street-smart pistol-packin' mamas of Coffy and Foxy Brown, but still commands the screen every minute she's on. Arthur Marks fills the film with shootouts and (rather bland) car chases, but the highlights are an assassination by garbage truck and a free-for-all firefight at a religious retreat. Jim Backus costars as a wheelchair-ridden racist millionaire, Godfrey Cambridge plays a flamingly gay conspirator, and Ted Lange is a flashy, fast-talking pimp in two comic scenes. --Sean Axmaker
Friday Foster Reviews:
Friday Foster-Vhs- Not that good. Watch "Coffy".but Pam Is in it!So...Still worth watching. 
2009-06-06 - This movie compared to Coffy,is not that good, but Pam Is in it, and it's worth the watch, I feel it drags on at times. The good thing is the movie has a More positive spin compared to other movies of the genre,and with Most Pam Movies, it's not as violent or negative.
Light hearted Blaxploitation picture starring the Queen of the genre.
2009-02-16 - Pam Grier is delightful in this lighter than usual Blaxploitation picture that gives Grier a more meaty role than usual.
In the film she plays a Photo Journalist for a Fashion Magazine who gets mixed up in an assassination attempt on a politician.
The film fearures some reliable actors like Yaphet Kotto,a young,Carl Weathers and Scatman Crothers and plenty of the requisite hilarious action scenes this genre is known for.
Of course,Grier also has some skin scnes,not as explicit as the classic scenes offered in Coffy(1972) or Hit Man(1973),but still Grier in a shower and a hot tub is hard to resist for her fans.
All in all,harmless action fare for fans of the genre and of the lovely star.
good film during the wane of black action flicks
2008-06-24 - *** This comment may contain spoilers ***
Friday Foster, based on the 1970's era comic strip by Jim Lawrence and Jorge Longaron, is about a young black woman magazine photographer. In the original strips, Friday was the assistant to a white photographer; in the film, it's Friday herself who's the shutterbug. Friday (Pam Grier) works for Glamour magazine, and her boss (Julius Harris) sends her to cover the airport arrival of Blake Tarr (Thalmus Rasulala) a self-made billionaire, and apparently the richest black man in the world. Friday gets more than she bargained for as this presumably ordinary assignment turns into an attempted murder, with Tarr as the target. Friday got photos of the hit men, so she becomes a target as well. As it so happens, Tarr is organizing a massive meeting of influential African-Americans at his vast estate; it figures to be an agenda-planning affair for black America. The bad guys (who are for now anonymous) don't take kindly to a black think-tank getting traction, and Friday's misadventures lead her to discover that someone plans to murder everyone who attends this event.
Her partner in (fighting) crime is Colt (Yaphet Kotto), a private detective who likes Friday, but with him she keeps it strictly platonic. She reserves her romantic side for Tarr and for Senator David Lee Hart (Paul Benjamin). A pre-Rocky Carl Weathers (as the hit-man Yarbro) gives chase to Friday for much of the film, and a pre-Love Boat Ted Lange is a young pimp who openly pines for Friday to join his enterprise. Other notable actors in the film include Earth Kitt, Scatman Crothers, Godfrey Cambridge, and Mr. Howell himself, Jim Backus. The action in the film is fast and slick, and the narrative manages to maintain a certain knowing campiness, despite the presumably serious political intrigue of the plot.
Produced and released during the wane of the black-action film trend of the 1970's, the film met with modest response at the box office; a few years later, Hollywood abandoned low-budgeted action fare aimed at ethnics for bigger-budget 'mass-appeal' blockbusters.
[3.5]- "Is she crazy or something?" - "No, she's just all woman" 
2006-11-14 - In 'Friday Foster' Grier is getting even closer to 'Cleopatra Jones' territory, but without the fun and style of that movie or its sequel. I was slightly disappointed when I saw it because it didn't deliver the typical kick a** madness you normally get from a Pam Grier movie! The storyline is tame, the forced political correctness is only pesky and the whole stuff lacks in violence and sex, so prepare for blaxploitation in its mildest form!
In here we have Pam Grier, as Friday- a magazine photographer, who is given the assignment of covering the airport arrival of the richest black man in America. But Friday gets more than she bargained for as this routine assignment turns into an assassination attempt. Because Friday was able to get some shots of the would be killers, her life is in danger. Soon, everywhere she goes, people end up dead. Friday's investigations lead her to corrupt government officials, a renowned preacher with an eye for more than the Bible, and something called The Black Widow.
Pam Grier is convincing in the lead, but not as tough as "Coffy" or "Foxy Brown"! This movie actually has one of the best supporting casts of any blaxploitation film, but fails to hold up on its end. If you want to be entertained somehow watch out for the performances of genre greats like Yaphet Kotto plays Grier's detective buddy, and Julius Harris is her boss. Plus there's Scatman Crothers ('Black Belt Jones'), Thalmus Rasulala ('Blacula'), Godfrey Cambridge ('Cotton Comes To Harlem'), Paul Benjamin ('Across 110th Street') and Carl Weathers ('Rocky'), as well as Eartha Kitt who is a hoot as a flamboyant fashion designer, Isaac the bartender from 'The Love Boat' (Ted Lange) and even inexplicably 'Gilligan's Island's Thurston Howell III (Jim Backus)!
This film does have some lighthearted tone in comparison to her other films. That's not to say there aren't plenty of killings, but it never feels as depressing, downbeat, or serious as something like "Coffy." It's a nice change of pace to see Grier laughing and joking with Kotto in many of the film's scenes. The action scenes are good and funny at the same time. One of my personal favorites is the rooftop chase with Kotto and Weathers and the second being the fashion show. The fashion line up was just as crazy because the models showed no form of expression going down the runway while doing a form a vogue-dance that sort of scared me a bit while maintaining a zombie like expression across their face, you have to see it in order to understand it.
I'm a fan of 70s Blaxplotation because it reminds me of my parents era and fashion sense, gotta love them. As I stated before "Friday Foster" may not be a spectacular film but it's still welcome in my movie collection.
Friday Foster
2006-11-10 - Wasn't her best movie but if you're as big a fan of Pam Grier as I am it's a must own to fill out your collection.
