Review of Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song (1971) by Jeremy V — 28 Feb 2008

This movie is regarded as a huge milestone for black cinema, and I can see why it might've been great at the time... but my god, it has not aged well at all. The main character speaks literally 7 lines the whole movie, the editing is terrible, the movie is okay at first, but the same song plays over and over and there is absolutely no story, it's just Sweetback running from the cops the whole time.

Granted it must've been cool for black audiences finally see a black man in a film stand up to "The Man" but there are so many better heroes these days for the black community to look up to, both in real life and in films.

I had high hopes for this movie and it turned out to be pretty goofy. Oh also, was rated X when it first came out and has at least 5 different sex scenes. The movie even opens with a 10 year old kid getting laid.

.. no joke. It's pointless. Next week in my film class we watch Shaft, so I'm hoping that is better than this goofy thing.