Often credited as the first Blaxploitation movie, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song was directed, written, edited, scored and produced by Melvin Van Peebles, who also played the movie’s title character. Using his own money to finance the film, Peebles literally ran himself into the ground during its 19 day shoot, with friends and family becoming collateral damage. That the biopic depicting the making of this film would be written, produced, directed by and starring one of those casualties, showed promise. However, like father like son, Mario Van Peebles can only do so much with a shoestring budget and a shooting schedule of less than three weeks.

Like the film its making depicts, Baadasssss! exhibits many directorial flourishes, most of which occur in the film’s opening minutes. The remainder of the biopic seems to continue its subjects' style by giving all indications that it too was filmed in a haphazard fashion. An eclectic cast provides a mildly comic retelling of Melvin’s battles with Hollywood before a darker subtext emerges that places the younger Mario Van Peebles in the spotlight. The evident conflict that the elder Mario Van Peebles feels about this time while simultaneously celebrating his father’s achievement, casts a muddled pall over the entire proceedings.

It may be this is an important film. Certainly the points it makes about Hollywood’s depiction of African Americans needs to be aired. Yet, like the movie whose making it depicts, the message gets lost in the debris.