Synopsis
Baadasssss! (2004) is a drama you can watch online on iFILM — writer-director-star Mario Van Peebles playing his own father Melvin during the fractious 1971 shoot that produced "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song" and kicked open the door to Black independent filmmaking in America.
The production was held together by bad checks, bluffed fire departments and sheer nerve. Melvin was not easy — the film doesn't pretend otherwise. Mario was eleven years old when his father put him in a sex scene, and that memory sits at the center of this whole reckoning. Terry Crews, Ossie Davis, Nia Long and John Singleton fill out the cast around Van Peebles, who is onscreen for almost every frame.
What keeps Baadasssss! from becoming a tribute reel is that it genuinely doesn't know how to feel about Melvin Van Peebles — and neither does Mario. That unresolved tension between admiration and clarity is what lifts this above a making-of story. Watch Baadasssss! (2004) online on iFILM.
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