—Kel McKnight, B1Daily

Michael Jai White is back in familiar territory with Trouble Man, a 2025 action-comedy that mixes martial arts, crime, comedy and a splash of old-school Blaxploitation flavor.

White stars as Jaxen, a former police officer turned Atlanta private investigator who is hired to locate missing R&B superstar Jahari, played by La La Anthony. What begins as a missing-person investigation quickly expands into a larger conspiracy, putting Jaxen’s fists, investigative instincts and survival skills to work.

White doesn’t merely headline the movie. He also directed and produced it, while Michael Stradford wrote the screenplay. The supporting cast packs plenty of personality, including Method Man, Mike Epps, Orlando Jones, Levy Tran and Gillian White.

The result is essentially a Michael Jai White playground: wisecracks, street-level detective work, gunplay and the kind of martial-arts action that has made him a cult favorite since Blood and Bone and Black Dynamite. Critics were mixed on the finished movie, but even some negative reviews singled out White’s screen presence and Method Man’s contribution.

Released theatrically and digitally on August 1, 2025, Trouble Man runs a lean 92 minutes and offers something increasingly uncommon in mainstream action cinema: a Black action hero at the center of his own pulpy detective adventure.

—Kel McKnight, B1Daily