cult film freak: JIM BROWN, DON STROUD AND GEORGE KENNEDY 'TICK, TICK, TICK'

Jim Brown in TICK, TICK, TICK Year: 1970 Rating: ***1/2

Similar plot-line to the past and future, TICK TICK TICK pays homage to IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT while foreshadowing a dramatic version of BLAZING SADDLES since there's a new sheriff/lawman in a small Southern town from the late 1960's, and Jim Brown replaces a surprisingly upbeat, open-minded George Kennedy backed by semi-progressive mayor Fredric March: one winding up the black man's deputy, the other a semi-mentor...

What plays out more like a TV-movie or series pilot than a theatrical motion picture, TICK is also the beginning of Brown's racially-driven foray into 1970's low-budget blaxploitation after co-starring in the previous decade's blockbusters or crime potboilers: from THE DIRTY DOZEN and ICE STATION ZEBRA to THE RIOT and THE SPLIT...

Don Stroud and Jim Brown in TICK, TICK, TICK

Here in a scorching hot town with racist locals... in particular future SLAUGHTER'S BIG RIP-OFF Don Stroud and rich kid Richard Ransom with signature background hillbillies Dub Taylor, Mills Watson, Clifton James and Anthony James countered by aggressive black Bernie Casey and Brown's passive sidekick Richard Elkins... right as thing's get seriously heated and violently riled up, the sparse programmer's over...

Which is bad since the story needed more punch beyond a foot chase and some gun-play, and good for never outwearing its welcome, perhaps deliberately titled TICK TICK TICK since a proverbial explosion hardly occurs in what's more a build-up thriller than a high-octane action vehicle.