Well, what did I expect happens in “Karensville,” exactly? Killing Black people, then harvesting and selling their organs for big bucks? Yeah, that sounds about right. Get a load of One Spoon of Chocolate, aka “RZA’s One Spoon of Chocolate,” aka “Quentin Tarantino Presents RZA’s One Spoon of Chocolate,” a film that ain’t gonna make MAGA feel comfortable … to which I say, you fucking brought it on yourselves, Trump voters. You didn’t have to be racist. And you sure-as-Hell didn’t have to be racist while pretending you weren’t. Well, aren’t. Trump supporters, you are racists; it’s pretty obvious to the rest of us.
This film, however, has nothing to do with Trump, just highlights some of the underlying forces that got him elected. Karensville, OH is a small town up to evil. It’s like Normal, MN, except this evil has both money and racism behind it. In the opening, a young hitchhiking Black man gets a ride from four white coeds in a convertible. Later, they pull up at a convenience store; the man goes for snacks, and emerges to find the coeds have been replaced with, essentially, Klan members. They didn’t have robes, but masked white guys with baseball bats looking for violence and targeting a Black man? Yeah, that’s the Klan.
Our hero is Randy Joneson (Shameik Moore), who starts the film in prison, where, ironically, he is safer. Randy aka “Unique” is a Gulf War vet and a martial artist. He is not the guy to fuck with. He’s in jail for defending a battered girlfriend with a tad too much vigor. The only person he knows on the outside is his cousin, Ramsee (RJ Cyler), who owns property in Karensville, OH.
It doesn’t take long for the local hoods to find the new Black guy in town. It takes even less time for trouble to start. And, gosh golly gee, I sure would like to tell you that when trouble gets started, the Black guys, especially being the non-aggressors, would have the law on their side. But this is a town where the head Klansman is son of the sheriff, and half of his minions wear badges.
Oh, and this is a violent and disturbing film, btw. Organ-harvesting-while-the-“patient”-is-still-alive disturbing. Anybody who could stomach that moment definitely needs closure. One Spoon of Chocolate gives plenty.
In 1996, Samuel L. Jackson played a vengeful father in A Time to Kill. The film bothered me. The basic premise is two redneck assholes rape and kill a preteen Black girl, and the father (Jackson) takes the law into his own hands. I found the plot so over-the-top that I couldn’t find the fun in the vengeance. Apparently what I objected to the most was how ahead-of-its-time the film was. While I can’t say the plot of A Time To Kill is so far removed from the plot of One Spoon of Chocolate, I am much more 
comfortable with today’s tale of vengeance. Have times changed that dramatically? No, they haven’t. And maybe that’s the problem. What’s changed is that while the ugly is the same, the assholes aren’t hiding any longer. There aren’t whispers about White Supremacy; it’s the Republican platform. You vote for it now. In 1996, it struck me as an embarrassing POV. Call me naïve or stupid or uninformed or whatever. But I do know that the Grand Wizards of the US at the time had the decency to show some modesty and appear only to others of their kind. Now, they’re in the White House. And I’m good with a film where they get some come-uppance. Really good.
One Spoon of Chocolate is one-sided and clunky; it will do nothing to help race issues in this country, and would have been laughable twenty years ago, BUT NOW? Any citizen horrified by the rise of racism and racist policy under President Trump needs this film. It certainly isn’t for everybody, and yet, with a smirk and a side-eye, I left the theater as satisfied as I’m going to be at any time in 2026.
There once was a parolee, Unique
Post jail, family did he seek
But instead for the Klan
A revival of THE MAN
Looks like this Black guy is now up Shit Creek
Rated R, 114 Minutes
Director: RZA
Writer: RZA
Genre: Kill Whitey!
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: BLM
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: MAGA
