It's been branded with the "blaxploitation" label, but there is little that's exploitive in
J.D.'s Revenge, a film of well-drawn, articulate characters dragged into a
supernatural showdown. Glynn Turman (Cooley High) is especially fine as the
sensitive and quiet Ike, a determined student moonlighting as a cab driver, so
wound up he's on the verge of cracking. Enter (literally) the ghost of J.D., a
violent, vengeful gangster murdered in the opening moments. He could be Ike's
own Mr. Hyde, a dapper, flamboyant ladykiller with a fiery temper and a straight
razor who slowly smothers Ike's easygoing personality. Driven by flashes of
memory, he sets his vengeful sights on fire-and-brimstone preacher Reverend
Bliss (Louis Gossett Jr.), whose dark past is intricately tied up with J.D.'s
murder. Director Arthur Marks (Detroit 9000) sidesteps the usual spooky clich?s
to stir up a modern New Orleans gumbo of ghost story, gangster tale, and
character drama. J.D. is both devilish sadist and avenging angel, while the
tortured Ike awakens from J.D.'s violent rampages with a hole in his memory but
a sick feeling from his imagined complicity in the crimes. The story gets wrapped
up a little too neatly in the end, but the dark character shadings and the evocative
mystery at the center of Ike's possession makes J.D.'s Revenge an
unexpectedly compelling supernatural thriller. --Sean Axmaker