The River Niger (1976)

Exceptional Movie
The production of this movie leaves much to be desired, it almost has a home movie feel to it. But the movie itself is real deep right on down to it's liberation armies, informers, and agent infiltrating provocateurs. Glynn Turman gives a superb performance as the ex air force vet, finally come home to the hood for good. Glynn Turman is one of my all time favorite actors (Cooly High, J.D.'S Revenge). The rest of the allstar cast give excellent performances. From James Earl Jones to Cicely Tyson. When you really look at it, this movie, it covers so many themes relevant to the times then(70's)and now. VietNam (wars), Revolutionary Struggle,gangs, drug use, father son relationships,cancer, romantic relationships, honor etc. If not for the production I would have given this movie a 5 but inspite of that I think it's excellent, and I'm glad to add it among my formidable collection of so called "black" classic movies. My copy contained a classic "black" cartoon "John Henry" the steel driving man, as a youth, it was one of the only cartoons "representing" on T.V., a real treat.

an underrated film
this is one of my favortie films of the century and i have only seen it once and that was last week James Earl Jone is one of the best actors ever up there with deniro and al panico the same as Louis Jr. they brought clicked in this film there was a lot of scenes that reminded me of other black films this with cooly high is what took black films to a whole new level the lady from roots is an underrated actress she should have whole an oscar decades ago in her time she was an angelina baskett and a halle berry status actress the cool nerd from cooly high played in this movie he is other good to very good actor who should have acted in big roles i loved the african beat they played throughout the film it made me enjoyed the movie that much more

"The River Niger" is Heavily Polluted
I'm sure that this is probably a great movie. However, I will never know. The quality of this DVD led me to turn it off within the first 5 minutes. How on earth does a studio release a DVD, knowing that someone is spending their hard-earned money for it, and have it look as terrible as this? It's really a shame. My advice is to find someone else who has it, or look for it at the library.