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Baadasssss!

2004, Movie, R, 108 mins

Baadasssss!: Review

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Melvin Van Peebles helped open Hollywood's studio system to African-American filmmakers, paving the way for the next generation of black writers and directors — including his own son, model-handsome actor-director Mario — to make movies as shallow, bland and disposable as white filmmakers. Mario repays him with this adaptation of his father's memoir about making the incendiary SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSSSS SONG (1971), one of the most successful independent films of all-time and the first blaxploitation picture. Hollywood, 1970: Having just directed the mainstream studio comedy WATERMELON MAN, Melvin Van Peebles (Mario Van Peebles) is a hot commodity. But he's not interested in a lucrative multi-picture deal to make more of the same. Casting around for a new project, he hits on the then-revolutionary idea of writing and directing a non-Hollywood movie aimed squarely at the largely ignored African-American audience, a film by black people for black people. He comes up with an urban crime story about the apolitical Sweet Sweetback, who murders a racist cop and gets away with it. Starting with his WATERMELON MAN salary, Van Peebles and his pal, genial hippie drug dealer Bill (Rainn Wilson), try to amass financing at a time when "independent" mostly meant porno. They join forces with adult-movie producer Clyde Houston (David Alan Grier), who has access to equipment and production services, recruit a racially mixed crew and assemble a cast of largely non-professional actors. When Van Peebles despairs of finding a lead, he takes the role himself. His assistant's boyfriend is in a struggling funk band who agree to do the music; luckily, they turn out to be Earth, Wind and Fire. What keeps the saccharine "Hey kids, let's put on a show!" vibe at bay is Mario's surprisingly clear-eyed view of his father. Even though he clearly loves and admires him, he's also aware that his failings were inextricably connected to his strengths, notably Melvin's monumental self-centeredness. The scene in which 12-year-old Mario makes his acting debut, playing young Sweetback losing his virginity to an older hooker, is a remarkably complex blend of reportage and a vividly personal evocation of being a mortified, inexperienced adolescent feigning sexual congress with a naked woman on camera. The movie is at its best when it's most straightforward. Flights of fancy like the child angel perched on Melvin's ceiling or his conversations with the black-clad Sweetback, who appears to undermine his confidence at crucial junctures, seem forced and pointless. leave a comment --Maitland McDonagh
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