A Piece of the Action (film)

A Piece of the Action
A Piece of the Action promotional movie poster
Directed by	Sir Sidney Poitier
Produced by	Melville Tucker
Written by	Charles Blackwell Based upon a story by Timothy March
Starring	Sir Sidney Poitier Bill Cosby James Earl Jones
Music by	Curtis Mayfield
Cinematography	Donald M. Morgan
Edited by	Pembroke J. Herring
Production company	First Artists
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date	October 7, 1977 (1977-10-07)
Running time	135 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English

A Piece of the Action is a 1977 comedy crime film starring Sir Sidney Poitier and Bill Cosby. Poitier also directed the film. This was the third film pairing of Poitier and Cosby following Uptown Saturday Night and Let's Do It Again; the films are considered a trilogy, even though the actors play characters with different names in each film. It was also Poitier's last acting role for more than a decade, as he focused his attentions on directing only. The film also stars James Earl Jones.

Dave Anderson (Cosby) and Manny Durrell (Poitier) are two high-class sneak thieves who have never been caught. Joshua Burke (Jones) is a retired detective who has enough evidence on the both of them to put them behind bars. Instead, he offers to maintain his silence if the crooks will go straight and do work at a youth center for delinquents. At first, the crooks are reluctant and unwilling (and so are the kids). As time goes by they gain the trust and admiration of the kids and they start to enjoy the job. All goes well until a past heist comes back to haunt them and they have to make up for it...or else...

In 2002, it was announced that Will Smith and his production company, Overbrook Entertainment, had secured the rights to the trilogy for remakes to star Smith and to be distributed by Warner Bros.. Smith stated that he hoped to get Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence and other famous African-American stars to be in the films.