Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971)

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Don't listen to the negative reviews

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song is a film whose reputation is based almost entirely on its historical importance. When I finally saw it after hearing a lot about it for many years, I was somewhat alarmed at just how amateurish it in actual fact was. This isn't a problem in and of itself but it was a bit surprising how raw it was given its fame and reputation. Director and star Melvin Van Peebles was nothing if not a visionary though, as this was the first film to tap into the African American audience in quite this way. He created a new type of black hero; one that was aggressive and sexually threatening. And one that we are in no doubt is at odds with white authority. Unsurprisingly, this film was made way outside of the mainstream but it turned a pretty big profit from its small budget. As is always the way, other film-makers took note – including Hollywood – and a plethora of exploitation movies were made aimed squarely at this significant African American audience. And with that the Blaxploitation sub-genre was born.The basic story-line is really simple. A sex show performer called Sweetback kills a couple of cops who are beating up a fellow black man and then goes on the run through South Central L.A. on his way to the Mexican border. It's really the locations, people and authenticity that make it interesting though. The run down sections of L.A. in particular are great time-capsule stuff and give us a peek into a time and place where the streets really did look mean. Overall, the film is an interesting look at the black experience in the early 70's ghettos. It does give out its message pretty clearly about the repression of the black man in a white controlled culture. Its defiant stance must've struck a chord with its audience, as Sweetback is never portrayed as the criminal – it's the police who are regarded as such, so it subverts the whole crime genre in this way. While it may be right-on about race, it's not so enlightened about sexual politics however. The women in the film seem to only exist for Sweetback to have sex with, while the often reported fact that Van Peebles was really having sex on film in these scenes is just too sleazy for me.This is definitely a landmark movie, though, there is no doubt about that. But I would have to label it important but not that good. The reason I score it fairly high though is that, despite its many film-making short-comings it does have a relentless energy and the rawness of the production does in fact work in its favour at least to some extent. The crazed montage heavy editing keeps up the intensity and is even pretty experimental in approach a lot of the time, while the grimy locations and unusual characters possess an authenticity that serves it well. And underscoring it is a soundtrack of urgent urban funk that sets the scene extremely well. This latter factor was often the best thing about some of the later Blaxploitation movies in actual fact and remains one of the things that best defines them today. So, in summary, while this film isn't very good in a number of ways, it has enough attitude about it to raise it several rungs.

My goodness, this movie was a genuine trip. undoubtedly the film-makers were on something as well when they did this movie and I wish I could say it resulted in a great movie.The one and foremost reason why this movie is still considered to be a somewhat important one is because it is seen as the first true blaxploitation flick. And really, I absolutely love blaxploitation, no matter how bad and crazy those movies can get at times. It's because the movies are fun to watch, with its over-the-top characters and situations. I however got very little pleasure out of this movie. So while it perhaps was the first, it's also far from the best the genre has to offer.Maybe because it's the first, it's also obviously a far from polished and typical genre movie. Some classic blaxploitation ingredients are there, while the movie is also being filled with a ton of more stuff, that was completely redundant and helped to make this movie a way too odd one at times.This movie at times feels like a true psychedelic trip, with its odd scenes, crazy editing, visuals and music. It could had worked out if it helped to move the movie forward with but it really doesn't. The movie doesn't feel like its going anywhere and it really feels like a long sit as well, even though the movie is only about 97 minutes short. I most certainly was glad when it finally was over, since I was longing for the end, about 60 minutes in of it.Don't even ask me what this movie is all about. Yes, I know that Sweetback is on the run but why and for who exactly all remains a big mystery to me. I also really don't know what the character of Sweetback was supposed to be all about and why he got a movie based around him. The movie feels incredibly random with all of its scenes and developments. The movie has the occasional sex scene in it, no doubt all put in there so Melvin Van Peebles could allow himself to have some fun. He did not only played the main character but also directed and wrote the movie, among many other things. And believe me, at least some of the sex in this movie is real, since Melvin Van Peebles actually contracted gonorrhea from an 'actress' while shooting this movie.It was also weird seeing an 14-year old Mario Van Peebles having a sex scene in this, as a young Sweetback, with an adult woman. How did they ever get away with this? I doubt it was real sex they were having but still...they were obviously really naked and on top of each other.Because Van Peebles had to finance this movie himself, it most certainly isn't the most classy or best looking movie. The movie does not only has a cheap look to it but also a just plain bad look. At times it's really hard to say what's going on since the picture quality is too bad or a scene gets too dark at times to tell what's happening.I can most certainly appreciate and like a good old fashioned blaxploitation flick but this movie just isn't very good or fun to watch.4/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Any film that features in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die has got to be worth trying in my opinion, I have been both surprised and occasionally questioning the titles, and this is one I'm somewhere in between. Basically Sweet Sweetback (Melvin Van Peebles), named after his love for sex and large penis, grew up in a Los Angeles brothel after being orphaned, where he worked as a towel boy and lost his virginity to a prostitute, and now as an adult he is a sex show performer, i.e. male prostitute. A black man has been murdered, and the LAPD speak to Sweetback's boss Beetle (Simon Chuckster), and they get his permission to arrest Sweetback, blame him for the crime and then quickly release him to make peace in the black community. When they do arrest him they also bring in young Black Panther named Mu-Mu (Hubert Scales), who insults the police, and eventually the officers remove his cuffs to beat him up very badly, and Sweetback, still cuffed, beats them until unconscious. Next we see Sweetback travelling from South Central Los Angeles towards the United States–Mexico border, where he is arrested again for the earlier assault, only to escape again during a riot. After getting his cuffs removed with the offer of sex, he carries on his journey, getting captured by the biker gang Hells Angels, and the female leader lets him and Mu-Mu go as long as she gets sex, being impressed by his large penis. The police almost catch them, and while Mu-Mu goes with the gang, and he and another Biker (John Amos) are killed, Sweetback continues to run, and a sympathetic white man agrees to swap clothes so he can blend in with society. The police find out Sweetback's real name is Leroy from his foster mother, and the film ends with Sweetback forced to walk across the desert, escaping the hunting dogs, going into the Tijuana River and making it to Mexico, swearing to return. Also starring John Dullaghan as Commissioner and Rhetta Hughes as Old Girl Friend. Van Peebles acts, produces, composes and directs well enough, despite the fact the film is rather weird, with all the sexual behaviour, violence and prostitution element but it is I suppose important in the history of filmmaking, as it does not (completely) stereotype black people, and it is a different non-mainstream film, a strange but kind of fascinating blaxploitation. Good!

While it's camp value is worthy of a viewing, this movie is a mess from a technical standpoint. The editing and sound engineering make it so that you spend half the movie trying to figure out what the hell is going on. I didn't even know Sweetback was supposed to be a prostitute until I read it here. It seems to be more soft-core porn with a tacked on plot rather than a serious movie. While it's a great time capsule of 60's attitudes towards sex, it comes across as more of a reason for Melvin to get it on with actresses.But apparently it didn't matter--the movie made money. Perhaps it's the total cheesiness that is the film's allure. Or maybe it's the excellent soundtrack (I really thought someone famous had done it) that gave it street cred. But it's probably all that silly sex going on throughout the film that made the film its money.