Cool as ice problem solver Mr. T (Robert Hooks) – who is equal parts private eye and neighborhood kingpin – is hired by two gangsters (Paul Winfield and Ralph Waite) to find out who’s been sticking up their craps games. The gangsters frame Mr. T for the shooting of a henchman belonging to a rival mobster, played by the terrific Julius Harris. Once Mr. T finds out he’s been set up, he goes gunning for revenge.

Directed by Ivan Dixon, who would next helm The Spook Who Sat By The Door before racking up credits in TV throughout the ’70s, and written by John D.F. Black, Trouble Man isn’t good enough to really recommend, but it’s not bad enough to blowtorch either.

With respectable financing by 20^th Century Fox – who must have intended this to be their answer to Shaft – the film is competently made, for the most part. The fight choreography is weak, but the casting of Hooks was a great move. He plays Mr. T with ice water in the veins, the perfect bad motherfucker you’d want to come see if you had some sort of problem in Los Angeles.

The film gets off to a smooth start, with Mr. T driving to his headquarters, a pool hall managed by a cat with a tin leg (a natural performance by Bill Henderson). Mr. T agrees to post bail for a knucklehead in jail, offers to look into an apartment building in disrepair and schools a hustler in a game of pool before being approached by Winfield and Waite, who are also quite good in the film.

The biggest problem with Trouble Man is the dialogue. Characters talk, and talk, and talk. Exposition and explanation go on for what seems like forever. The plot isn’t what you’d call complicated and required nowhere near as much banal dialogue as is present in the film.

Much of the movie plays like an afterthought, a project that was produced to complement Marvin Gaye’s masterful score. Made up mostly of instrumental pieces, the Trouble Man album is sublime in its cool, mostly unassuming and even quiet in spots, with a rich blues flavor. It was released between Gaye’s landmark “What’s Goin’ On” and “Let’s Get It On” LPs and captures the singer at the height of his legendary soul prowess.

It’s almost as if the filmmakers listened to Gaye’s score, watched Shaft and then slapped together a movie. It’s actually not bad, but not worth really watching either.