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BAADASSSSS! Send This Review to a Friend
Mario Van Peebles has made the ultimate tribute to his father, Melvin Van Peebles, by recapturing a seminal time in his dad's career. The 1971 "Sweet Sweetbacks's Baadasssss Song" by the elder Van Peebles was a gutsy, nervy, nose-thumbing landmark work that proved there could be a sizable market for films aimed at African-American audiences. The box office gross of nearly $12 million, a hefty number at the time, stimulated other productions aimed at blacks, although what followed was more in the vein of exploitation movies than Van Peebles' story about a black man who fights racism and defies repressive white lawmen. Melvin Van Peebles wrote, directed, scored and acted in his film, and now his son has dramatically captured what the battle was like. In addition, Mario plays his father and does a remarkable job of getting him accurately.
There is a twist. As a boy, Mario was cast in the film by his dad in a much-discussed sex scene geared to showing raw life as his father saw it in those days. That's dealt with, too, in "Baadasssss!" But the main thrust of the new film is to show his father as a man who would not take no for an answer and scrounged every way he could against the odds to put together the money and cast needed to get his film made. There is also some humor in it, as theater owners in Detroit are cajoled into playing the film against their better judgment. At first it looks like failure, but with the promotion Van Peebles engineered, soon the black community was beating a bath to the theater and the success was under way.
Van Peebles (senior) battled against the Motion Picture Association of America's X-rating. When he couldn't get it rescinded he advertised the film as 'Rated X by an all-white jury." The making of the film is a remarkable story and Mario Van Peebles spins it with appealing fervor, spiced with a strong music track and including clips from the original. He picks up the revolutionary beat of his father's film, with its concluding promise that the hero who reaches safety across the Mexican border would return "to collect some dues."
There's also another dimension to the new work. Apart from the specific topic, "Baadasssss!" is a film that reflects the struggle of many independent filmmakers and what they still go through to pursue their visions. Anyone with an urge to make movies might find inspiration in this saga. For the general public it should be entertaining and enlightening. A Sony Pictures Classics release.
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