Pootie Tang [Blu-ray]

Director: Louis C.K., C.K. Louis Louis C.K.

Overview

This comic spoof is spun off from a character that first appeared on The Chris Rock Show, and is written and directed by Louis C.K., one of that show's producers. Lance Crouther stars as Pootie Tang, a crime fighting superhero and recording artist who speaks in an unintelligible gibberish that seems to be a combination of Ebonics and street slang. Despite his communication problem, Pootie is a hero to children, whom he attempts to protect from the evil Dick Lecter (Robert Vaughn), a corporate fat cat out to corrupt America's youth with alcohol, tobacco, and junk food. Pootie also runs up against an artistic imitator (David Cross) and a sleazy recording executive (Andy Richter) Pootie Tang co-stars Chris Rock, Dave Attell, and Bob Costas and Conan O'Brien as themselves.

Product Details

Release Date:	04/27/2021
UPC:	0810072541857
Original Release:	2001
Rating:	PG-13
Source:	Paramount
Language:	English
Time:	1:21:00
Sales rank:	20,007

Special Features

Music Video - Pootie Tangin' - by 702

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Lance Crouther	Pootie Tang
Jennifer Coolidge	Ireenie
Wanda Sykes	Biggie Shorty
Robert Vaughn	Dick Lecter
Chris Rock	Pootie's Father
Reg E. Cathey	Dirty Dee
Dave Attell	Frank
Mario Joyner	Lacey
Cathy Trien	Stacy
David Cross	Dennis
Andy Richter	Record Executive
David Attel	Frank
Louis C.K.	Actor
JB Smoove	Trucky
Laura Kightlinger	Actor
Christopher Wynkoop	Actor
Rick Shapiro	Actor
Conan O'Brien	Actor
Chuck Jeffreys	Bad Bitty
Kristen Bell	Actor
Keesha Sharp	P.G.
Bob Costas	Actor
Missy Elliott	Actor
QD3	Composer

Technical Credits

Louis C.K.

Louis C.K.	Director,Screenwriter
Dave Becky	Executive Producer
Cotty Chubb	Producer,Producer
Sean Daniel	Executive Producer
David Gale	Producer
Brett Goldstein	Casting
Ali LeRoi	Producer
Chris Rock	Producer
Michael Rotenberg	Executive Producer,Producer
Van Toffler	Executive Producer
Peter Schneider	Sound/Sound Designer
Richard Steele	Sound/Sound Designer
C.K. Louis	Director

Editorial Reviews

Unlike so many Saturday Night Live spin-offs, the underrated Pootie Tang was built out of a TV skit -- from the defunct Chris Rock Show -- that deserved a fuller treatment. Mining the line between gibberish and jive -- and between hip-hop and hype -- Rock Show director Louis C.K. has written and directed a movie that aims for cult status and mostly earns it. Pootie (played by Lance Crouther) is a ghetto superstar par excellence -- corny-cool right down to his cheap tinted shades and wide-open short-sleeve shirts. And while he may look like a wannabe Commodore trying to get backstage at a Teena Marie-Rick James concert, he's really a superhero whose powers lie in a magic belt bequeathed to Pootie by his late father (one of many roles played by Rock). When he's not recording wordless hit songs, he's out doing public service announcements to keep the kids of America (by way of Brooklyn) sober, off drugs, and as far away from cheeseburgers and chicken as possible. His PSAs have driven a super-conglomerate's profits into the ground. Eventually the CEO (played by Robert Vaughn in a hilariously tragic dye job) dispatches his temptress (Jennifer Coolidge) to weaken Pootie so he can steal the belt and make Pootie do malt liquor ads. You get the picture: Pootie Tang mocks the place where hip-hop and blaxplotiation meet. As it turns out, the movie's low-budget sheen is its own best critique of the retro-fabulousness being laughed at. With the peerless Wanda Sykes (dressed as a middle-aged Lil' Kim) providing plenty of laughs, Pootie is hellbent on keepin' it surreal.

Barnes & Noble

The character of Pootie Tang, a blend of hip-hop star and blaxploitation stud superhero, is well played by Lance Crouther who simultaneously brings to mind both Rudy Ray Moore as Dolemite and Buster Keaton's hilarious stone-faced expressions. For its first 15 minutes, the film is an inspired series of jokes ranging from a parody of a fight scene in an action film to the unusual death of Pootie's dad, including maybe the funniest scene ever of an unfaithful lover being kicked out of his jealous girlfriend's apartment. Although the film is unable to maintain the humor and the energy throughout its rather short 75-minute running time, Pootie Tang does deserve to be mentioned alongside Hollywood Shuffle and I'm Gonna Git You Sucka as one of the few films to take a strong comedic look at the images of African-Americans in popular culture. Though unable to expand on its sketch-comedy roots, Pootie Tang has all the makings of a cult favorite.

All Movie Guide - Perry Seibert

Poised somewhere between blaxploitation spoof and avant-garde freak-out, Pootie Tang qualifies as the weirdest, funniest studio release of the [2001] summer and a bona fide cult object in the making.... "Sipi-tai!" and "Wa-da-ta!" are his favorite interjections. It's one of the movie's central jokes that everyone somehow understands what he's saying.... [Louis] C.K. enlivens the proceedings with a befuddling array of alienation effects...and muscles through the threadbare patches by sheer force of surreal non sequitur. Dennis Lim

Village Voice