Wonderfully offbeat film!

What a beautiful movie!

Just what I expected

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971)** (out of 4)Male prostitute Sweetback (Melvin Van Peebles) gets tired of seeing a black man getting beaten by two white cops so he kills the cops. Sweetback takes off trying to evade the police who are hot on his trail.Thanks to its classic title and the fact that it's a historically important film, SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG has become somewhat of a folk/cult movie. There's no question that the film was a very important one for black cinema because it kick-started the blaxploitation genre but it also showed a different type of black man on the screen. White audiences were used to seeing Sidney Poitier and his kindness but none of that was to be seen with this film.Instead of taking it from the man, Sweetback decided to give it to the man and kill any white person who tried to hold him back. I'm sure a lot of people would watch this film today and call it all sorts of things but I think it's important that people realize that this was released just a few years after black people were still being beaten by the police and had water hoses turned on them. There's no question that Melvin Van Peebles broke all sorts of new ground and he deserves a lot of credit delivering this type of movie.With that said, there's still no question that the film itself isn't all that good. Basically we get a 97-minute running film where we see the hero bang several women, kill a few others and then he runs around the entire time. There's no question that the low-budget actually works for the film but at the same time everything is extremely slow and rather boring as well. Van Peebles is good in the role. He's given very little dialogue but that look tells you everything you need to know.SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG isn't a masterpiece but it deserves to be called a classic since it did break through so many new levels.

...it takes just as long the other way around in this movie. I have a lot of respect for what this film represented to people in '71. And I celebrate what it did to pave the way for the ideals that changed this country and, I hope, are still changing it for the better. The black revolution in film, which I believe this must have been nearly the first of it's kind to be pretty widely distributed concerning the "brothers and sisters who had enough of the man," is to be honored.However, I found this film to be almost unwatchable. Almost.I can't help it. I was uneasy and twitchy the whole time. The 60'ish style of almost constant repetitive music, dialogue, and visual, made me feel like I was tripping out. And I assure you that I was not. I wanted to kick the skipping jukebox. I wanted to shout, "O.K.! I get it! Just get on with it ! FOR GOD'S SAKE LETS GO!!!" It takes some patience and sticktoitofness...but the message is clear and you'd better watch your back cracker... cuz he's coming for you!

I just watched that stupid "movie" hours ago and I just can't say anything about it except that it is a fully piece of trash. First of all, the director of the movie didn't have a better idea that using his OWN LITTLE SON performing a simulated SEX SCENE, completely naked and moving on top of a naked middle-aged woman. I just don't understand how he managed to avoid going to jail for child porn exploitation. Really incredible! Is it right to do so if you are a black American in the early seventies? I wonder what the black community felt about it. Did they approve it for the sake of the film? In the second place, the "hero" of the "movie" - Sweetback- is nothing but a prostitute and -as the story develops- a murderer running away from the police. Third, the WHITE men, those responsible for all the oppression and poorness of the NEGRO people, are nothing but a bunch of stupid jerks. You might think if being that makes you so powerful as to be so formidable oppressors! And if it weren't much, the women here -most of all black women- are depicted as filthy horny bitches just willing to have sex encounters with Sweetback. I just kind of feel disappointed with this piece of crap, specially by the way it characterizes the same people it is supposed to defend -the blacks. I'm not a black one -as a matter of fact I'm a South American Mestizo- but if I were one, especially in the United States, I would feel very SERIOUSLY OFFENDED by that kinky motion picture, the most racist movie I've ever seen. To all the brothers and sisters -and everybody who really feels proud and respect for themselves, regardless of race or gender- keep away from this stupid piece of SH*T!

SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG (3+ outta 5 stars) Perhaps of more significance historically than cinematic ally, I nonetheless found this a fascinating film. It was not a widely distributed film but in the limited markets where it was shown (mostly in "black neighborhoods" I would imagine) it was a HUGE success. Watching this film now (a bizarre, disjointed "experimental" film) it's hard to imagine what audiences made of it back in the 60s. It's certainly doubtful that it would have the same impact if it came out today... but back in the 60s the very *idea* of a film centered on a black hero on the run from some less-than-perfect police officers was enough to blow peoples' minds. The movie is very a much a product of its time (lots of weird color effects and editing tricks) but I think the "dated" aspects of the film help put the audience back into that particular time and place rather than distancing them from the movie itself. It's not a perfect movie by any means but it has a strength and a style and great passion... and, in my view, that trumps bland competence.