YMMV / Black Caesar

• Awesome Music: James Brown's soundtrack, notably "The Boss", which is essentially a Badass Boast set to funky song.
• Designated Hero: See Misaimed Fandom below. Tommy is really no better than the Mafia goons he takes out en masse, with the only notable difference being that he cares about his children. Otherwise, he's a loathsome human being who alienates almost everyone close to him, doesn't care much about Helen, and only thinks of himself in the long run. Yet, he is presented as the hero audiences can root for.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Tommy (Fred Williamson) is seen running and jumping through an airport during one of the chase scenes in Harlem. Just a few short years later, another African-American football player, O. J. Simpson, would do much the same thing during his commercials for Hertz Rent-a-Car.
• Misaimed Fandom: Audiences believed that Tommy was the hero of the story, in spite of the fact that he's a conniving, loathsome womanizer who sold out his own family to become the king of his own empire.
• Moral Event Horizon: Tommy spends most of the first act as a likable, charismatic Villain Protagonist out for revenge against the racist cop that beat him and the white power establishment that left him destitute throughout his childhood. As such, despite his moments of ruthlessness, he can be seen as more of an Anti-Hero than a villain. This all comes to an end when he rapes Helen after forcing her to marry him. From that moment on, Tommy is shown to be a violent, savage thug at best who blackmailed his way into power and instituted a reign of violence over Harlem.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Caesar and Harlem read like a playbook of every bad vice from the mid-70s. Aside from the usual trappings (afros, bell-bottoms), it has:
  • The film begins with the main character working as a shoeshine boy, who is charging a dime per shine. Not only is this plot-relevant (Tommy is working as an accomplice to a mob hitman, and holds on to the target when he tries to escape), but it's also prominently referenced in James Brown's "Down and Out in New York City" from the soundtrack, making that an example as well.
  • The plot of both films is motivated by Tommy gaining access to, and stealing, the ledgers from The Mafia for leverage. Nowadays, it's hard to see what the big deal would be, as most businesses store their filing on computers or online (and may not even use old-fashioned ledgers in the first place).
  • Times Square is portrayed as the grimy, sleazy center of town, as opposed to its renovation in the early 80s as an LCD mecca.
  • In Harlem, Big Papa is able to walk into a subway station and gun down a rival dealer, then walk off nonchalantly. He'd never be able to get away with such a thing in modern times, where subways are outfitted everywhere with security cameras.
  • Also in Harlem, Tommy chases his former lieutenant Zach through an airport and all the way to the other side of the country, with both of them using different flights. Not only are both of them able to run through security checkpoints (both on and off the flight) without a problem, but their fight spills out into the baggage claim rack and the tarmac after they land.

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