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Baadasssss! (2003)

Director: Mario Van Peebles

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From Time Out London

‘Good things do not come to those who wait,’ snarls Mario Van Peebles in the guise of his father Melvin at the outset of this engaging making-of recap of poppa’s 1972 stick-it-to-the-man sally ‘Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song’. In the film (deep breath) writer-director-producer-editor-composer-star Melvin played a black stud on the run after delivering some retributory justice to two racist cops. It was to be ‘about a real brother, a street brother, just getting the man’s foot out of his ass,’ declares our cross-generational narrator. ‘Hollywood liked to see us clowning, but America wasn’t in a laughing mood. Especially black America.’ Stake-setting exposition out the way, ‘Baadasssss’s’ dramatic reconstruction is an oddly genial salute to Melvin’s take-no-prisoners exploit, more hosanna than harangue. For Melvin, black screen power was the aim, and by any means necessary was the game: ‘the man ain’t gonna carry messages for you for free,’ he determined, and signed off from both studio and union rules, shooting what was officially a ‘black beaver flick’ under the radar on borrowed money and good will. Little Mario’s own high-Afro’d presence on set adds an Oedipal element to the hall-of-mirrors proceedings – the film even recreates the scene in which his tyrannical father corralled him in front of the camera as the young Sweetback, losing his virginity to a prostitute – but the evidence here is that he came out more rounded than his dad. ‘Baadasssss’ is probably better paced than its forerunner, but it’s visually leaden. And while it captures the ambiguities of Melvin’s one-man struggle to beat the system and keep his soul, it’s a time-locked tale that never takes a line on how much the system changed. Do we need Sweet Sweetbacks today?

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Time Out London Issue 1816: June 8-15 2005

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