Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971)

Strong message, interesting story-line, explicit sex and violence, beginning that promises... and then very fast movie transforms into unwatchable crap. Stretched, full of unnecessary "parrot" repetition, too chaotic, mediocre acting and, for me, terrible directing. Director, who is also screen writer, must have been either on heavy drugs or VD reached his brain. Movie is made with just 150.000$ from his own pocket, so I have no objections on production, it's OK for such small amount of money, but even with that budget and only 3 weeks of shooting it could have been done much better. This way he just ruined awesome idea.

There are a few things you need to know about this film before you see it: 1) It includes pretty graphic sex scenes, one of them featuring the director's teenage son Mario (in the first few minutes). 2) It features a lead that barely speaks throughout the film. 3) It will be a nightmare to watch if you're in it for the action. "Sweetback" is a piece of history which talks about the meaning of race in the US. The film is not realistic, but a metaphor - its main character a "man without qualities," its setting a prototypical black ghetto, its story a mixture of fugitive slave narrative, black power pseudo-propaganda, and nightmarish action thriller. The story is pretty simple: a black stud performing in a sex show for white audiences in the black ghetto is routinely stopped by white police officers (to make up the numbers). Witnessing the cops beat a young black power activist, he uses his handcuffs to kill both policemen and elopes with the boy. All this takes about 20 minutes of the film - the rest documents Sweetback's escape. Sweetback's actions will evoke the worst of racism in the white establishment, while at the same time exposing the ideological malaise of the black strivers. The film is a pain to watch, and that's precisely what it should be. And it speaks against a reality that still exists - blatant white racism and unwillingness to address the issue of race, black conformism and political disaffection.

...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!