BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment

Greenes Please don't spend money on this.

Blucher One of the worst movies I've ever seen

Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.

Jackson Booth-Millard Any film that features in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die has got to be worth trying in my opinion, I have been both surprised and occasionally questioning the titles, and this is one I'm somewhere in between. Basically Sweet Sweetback (Melvin Van Peebles), named after his love for sex and large penis, grew up in a Los Angeles brothel after being orphaned, where he worked as a towel boy and lost his virginity to a prostitute, and now as an adult he is a sex show performer, i.e. male prostitute. A black man has been murdered, and the LAPD speak to Sweetback's boss Beetle (Simon Chuckster), and they get his permission to arrest Sweetback, blame him for the crime and then quickly release him to make peace in the black community. When they do arrest him they also bring in young Black Panther named Mu-Mu (Hubert Scales), who insults the police, and eventually the officers remove his cuffs to beat him up very badly, and Sweetback, still cuffed, beats them until unconscious. Next we see Sweetback travelling from South Central Los Angeles towards the United States–Mexico border, where he is arrested again for the earlier assault, only to escape again during a riot. After getting his cuffs removed with the offer of sex, he carries on his journey, getting captured by the biker gang Hells Angels, and the female leader lets him and Mu-Mu go as long as she gets sex, being impressed by his large penis. The police almost catch them, and while Mu-Mu goes with the gang, and he and another Biker (John Amos) are killed, Sweetback continues to run, and a sympathetic white man agrees to swap clothes so he can blend in with society. The police find out Sweetback's real name is Leroy from his foster mother, and the film ends with Sweetback forced to walk across the desert, escaping the hunting dogs, going into the Tijuana River and making it to Mexico, swearing to return. Also starring John Dullaghan as Commissioner and Rhetta Hughes as Old Girl Friend. Van Peebles acts, produces, composes and directs well enough, despite the fact the film is rather weird, with all the sexual behaviour, violence and prostitution element but it is I suppose important in the history of filmmaking, as it does not (completely) stereotype black people, and it is a different non-mainstream film, a strange but kind of fascinating blaxploitation. Good!

theskylabadventure This is quite possibly the worst film ever made! The story behind the production and the intentions of Peebles may be inspiring, but the movie sure ain't. Sure, the backbone of it was a seriously slap in the face for the oppressive end of the white establishment which still resonates today - and rightly so. But the significant message this movie was conceived to communicate is utterly lost in an unbearably sloppy 90 minute montage of violence, running and f**king. As if that weren't poor taste enough, we even get to watch a guy taking a dump wearing only a towel - lovely.I have no moral objection to the film, but cannot get past the fact that it is utterly incoherent from start to finish. The plot is almost non-existent, and only about a third of the screen time has anything to do with the 'story' anyway. There are random scenes that have no apparent meaning or significance whatsoever.It looks dreadful, as if the cameraman was on speed and crack at the same time. Beyond this, the night sequences (which make up a large percentage of the film) are so dark that you literally cannot see a thing. Alas, that may be just as well, as it goes some small way to detracting from the mind-blowingly poor 'acting'. Sweetback himself just pouts and minces about, and he's the best 'character' in there. The sound is awful, often with two songs (the same two songs on a continuous loop) literally playing on top of each other.I really wanted to like this movie, and I still acknowledge it as a milestone in American culture and social history. As a side note, it was not the first blaxploitation film as is popularly believed - Cotton Comes to Harlem was a year earlier. That said, technically Sweetback isn't a blaxploitation film at all as it was financed and produced entirely by a black man. Moot point really, but worth mentioning.In case my point has been lost, let me recapitulate. Sweet Sweetback has to be one of the very worst films I have ever seen in my life. As a piece of cinema, there is absolutely nothing redeeming about it whatsoever.Approach this as a documentation of the shift in (black) American social consciousness as it related to popular culture of the late '60s and early '70s. Otherwise avoid it altogether, you'll thank me later.

Comic_Book_Guy While it's camp value is worthy of a viewing, this movie is a mess from a technical standpoint. The editing and sound engineering make it so that you spend half the movie trying to figure out what the hell is going on. I didn't even know Sweetback was supposed to be a prostitute until I read it here. It seems to be more soft-core porn with a tacked on plot rather than a serious movie. While it's a great time capsule of 60's attitudes towards sex, it comes across as more of a reason for Melvin to get it on with actresses.But apparently it didn't matter--the movie made money. Perhaps it's the total cheesiness that is the film's allure. Or maybe it's the excellent soundtrack (I really thought someone famous had done it) that gave it street cred. But it's probably all that silly sex going on throughout the film that made the film its money.

Lee Eisenberg Some people are probably going to object to my 5/10 rating. After all, Melvin Van Peebles sought to show the world what the black community in the United States was experiencing. But it's weird to think that a movie about racism had some stereotypes (namely, the sex scene portraying the black man as great in bed). The plot of course has political activist Sweetback (Melvin Van Peebles) running from The Man after killing some cops who were attacking a Black Panther. All in all, "Sweet Sweetback's Baad Asssss Song" is good for what it's trying to show. What would have been really neat would have been if they'd lid-locked Nixon and forced him to watch this.