I think that Melvin Van Peebles has the talent, the intelligence and even the instincts of a good filmmaker—despite a growing body of evidence to the contrary. The latest exhibit, "Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song," [is] Van Peebles's third and worst feature….

[Ideas] have saved Van Peebles several times when weak performances or no money or merely deadheaded directing have gotten in the way of realization. But in this movie the failure is so very nearly total that the ideas all turn into clichés and positively collaborate in taking things down….

[The subject] is Sweetback's flight to the border, and his adventures during flight; and at one level of artiness or another, it is almost all predictable formula material.

The film is being presented as searing racial indictment—which may be a reasonable enterprise, but I don't think it is Van Peebles's enterprise, even when he tries...