Sidney Poitier probably shouldn't be accused so basely, but he does have a habit—since he turned actor-director—of making films that seem aimed at a black-white market and condescending to both shades. There is something for everyone in A Piece of the Action …: [the emphases rest] on jolly robbers, ghetto adolescents, even real problems. But the outcome of a largely black-staffed movie, with good intentions, does seem to turn on income: not what the film will make at the box-office but the way it chooses to deploy money in its inspissated plot. Poitier and the fine Bill Cosby are gentle villains who find themselves blackmailed into caring for a bunch of black dropouts at a community centre. While trying to suss out who has got them into this fix, they begin to bother about the prospective delinquents in their charge. Allow that there is some harsh language...