Trouble Man

Ivan Dixon's 1972 American film follows a man known as Mr. T, famous in Los Angeles for fixing problems, caught between two gambling outfits at war. He works for nobody, moves by his own rules, and both sides try to use him. The film comes out of the blaxploitation wave but departs from the template in places: the hero is calm rather than angry, and the violence functional rather than showy. Ivan Dixon's direction is restrained. What has really kept it alive is the score Marvin Gaye wrote; the album became far better known than the film and is counted among the best scores of its era. The story becomes confusing at times. Who it's for: viewers who like American genre cinema of the seventies and Marvin Gaye's music. Who it's not for: anyone avoiding violent content, or troubled by how the period wrote its women characters.