Customer Reviews

Pootie Tang [VHS]

5 star:		(63)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(9)
1 star:		(24)

 

 

Don't let the title lead you astray! This is NOT one of those gross-out sex movies that are all the rage at the metroplex. In fact, the title is the only offensive thing about the whole picture!

I went into this movie thinking it was going to be one of those "so bad it's good" movies. So you can imagine my surprise when I started laughing and couldn't stop until the final scene of the movie. It's nonsense. It's a joyful, daffy comedy. I mean, can you resist a movie with lines like, "Nobody could ever understand what Pootie was saying, but man, he sure was cool"? The characters and situations are over the top, but the actors are 100% committed to line after ridiculous line that it SOARS. It's one of those comedies that makes you think, "Why don't they make em like this anymore?"

The REAL star of this show, however, is Wanda Sykes who plays Pootie's gal Biggie Shorty, who "dresses up all nice and dances on the street next to a buncha ho's" (but that doesn't mean she's hookin'). She walks away with the whole picture. Chris Rock gives her some tough competition as a radio DJ and as Pootie's father, as does Jennifer Coolidge who plays the super-ho Ireenie, but in the end, Biggie Shorty is the star.

I'm speechless. This is one of my favorite movies of all time. And this coming from a guy whose favorite movies are CITIZEN KANE and CASABLANCA.

An urban Übermensch, Pootie Tang boasts boundless sex appeal and talent (he's so cool that his latest hit song needs neither music nor lyrics). Armed with a deadly accurate belt and an odd vocabulary, Pootie speaks like a hip-hop version of Jodie Foster in NELL. Played with deadpan intensity by Lance Crouther, only context and Bob Costas can decipher our hero's dialogue. Pootie makes gibberish fun and highly quotable.

More than Pootie making his enemies say "nay-no" to evil by whuppin' ass with his belt, Louis C.K.'s POOTIE TANG boasts the new millennium's most exciting scenes of a gorilla attack. The film also sports a terrific supporting cast that includes Wanda Sykes as Biggie Shortie (an off the hook hoochie), Robert Vaughn as Dick Lecter (the big name villain), and Chris Rock in a host of roles, including the moralistic to a fault, Daddy Tang.

Also known as SIGN YOUR PITTY ON THE RUNNING KINE, C.K.'s film is a modern comedy cum blaxploitation classic, reminiscent of genre greats. There's the Caucasian mastermind who's as nutty as Shelly Winters in CLEOPATRA JONES. There's the protagonist's unbelievable sexual prowess similar to that of Melvin Van Peebles in SWEET SWEETBACK'S BAADASSS SONG. And, there's a car wash confrontation that smacks of BLACK BELT JONES. "Sadatai!"

"Pootie Tang" is the ultimate guilty pleasure film. Sometimes I ask myself, "Why do I laugh at this?" I don't know why, but it's crazy. Chris Rock has done well on this movie. I don't know how you come up with a story about a funny talking super hero. Throughout the whole movie, this guy is saying a thing that doesn't make any sense, but the characters surrounding him all understand. How do you come up something like that?!? And put it into a feature film!!! One liners like "sa da tay" and "sine your pity on the runny kine", are classics.

Forget the fact that the movie is silly and extremely basic in plot, the story of this modern-day inner-city African-American untouchable super hero is funny, and on a elementary level, it even gets some socio-political digs in too. The movie is only 70 minutes long, but it manages to take shots at corporate America, some black stereotypes, and society's habit of unrestrained hero worship. I was tempted to label the movie "dumb", but given these little angles, it's obvious that there was some cleverness at work behind the scenes.

"Pootie Tang" was conceived on the HBO hit The Chris Rock Show, in this spin off movie, Pootie is trying to take all the junk food, drugs and alcohol off the street that is being distributed by Dick Lecter (Robert Vaughn). The supporting cast includes The Chris Rock Show regular Wanda Sykes. Missy Elliot also does a cameo in this as well.

"Pootie Tang" seems like a send up to 70's blaxpoitation films, but at the same time, I don't know what it is. "Pootie Tang" is a mixed bag of funk music, cheesy action and comedy. It all works for "Pootie Tang" making it the most unusual film ever made. If the idea of a character that combines the talents of Buckwheat, Austin Powers, and Shaft appeals to you, then you will find something to like about "Pootie Tang".

This movie came and went in theaters so fast I didn't get a chance to see it, but I rented it because Pootie Tang was always funny on the Chris Rock show, and I consider Chris Rock one of the funniest men in America. Pootie Tang is a rapper who speaks some sort of very extreme rap lingo, to the point where you cannot understand a word he says. Meanwhile, everyone else always understands him (kind of like Chewbacca, somehow the other characters can interpret what he says perfectly) though once in a while they'll say, "What the hell you talkin about?"

The plot isn't complex, Pootie fights bad guys (like drug dealers) with his magic belt, sings songs that somehow people can understand, and the ladies love him. Chris Rock plays his father, one of his friends, a DJ, and probably some other character I'm forgetting. Meanwhile The Man wants to brainwash Pootie into endorsing their horrible product, and (surprise surprise) he loses his magic belt, and goes on a mission to get it back. Wanda Sykes is great as...uh...I forget her name, but she narrates the story and helps Pootie, plus she wears a different cool-... wig in every scene. I wasn't rolling on the floor laughing, but the movie was funny and entertaining It starts out with Bob Costas interviewing him and saying he's gonna show a clip from his movie, 80 minutes go by, maybe even less (the end credits seemed to go on for 10 minutes) . The opening, with him fighting Dolemite-type bad guys, is hilarious. I also was impressed that the movie didn't rely on gross-out humor and wasn't violent-I don't think anyone got killed- and has a positive message that makes it a good family movie. I think it was "Do right, fight what's wrong, but the important thing is to love the world while you're doing it ." And what's wrong with that?

An inevitable cult classic. One of the oddest movies I've seen in some time. It takes nothing seriously, except Pootie Tang. Funny, twisted, absurd, bizarre, there is no good way to explain this movie to you. If you get it, you will probably love it, but there's a good chance you won't get it. Take a chance, my damie.

I believe that Pootie Tang is arguably the best comedy film ever, and I am a comedy snob. Very few people saw this film, fewer still stayed 'til the end, fewer still loved it and fewer still loved it for the right reasons. This movie is NOT a parody of Blaxsploitation films, it just uses those films as a starting point. This movie is not "so stupid it's funny" but rather "so ingenius it's funny." Critics and viewers alike have had a difficult time wrapping their minds around this movie because it is unlike anything ever seen before. The film's ultra-positive energy is a new kind of breakthough "edgy" that I believe is ten years ahead of its time. The character of Pootie is inscrutible and brilliant, yet tender and moving. Never have I seen a movie with more perfect casting (including documentaries!). So many mistakes could have ruined this film: the editing, the acting, the writing, but there was not a single misstep (despite the claims of creator Louis C.K.).

As I walked out of the theater after seeing Pootie Tang for the first time, I felt stunned, and blessed, to live in a world in which a movie like this could exist. After the third and forth viewings, the impact was lessoned not a whit.

There are very few movies I have seen in my lifetime that have made me laugh hard. I'm talking about genuinely funny movies that only intelligent people get. Orgazmo was one of those movies. The Princess Bride was also one of those movies.

Pootie Tang is one of those movies. (...) I can't get through a day without watching it at least once, now.

I can't explain the ingenuity coursing all throughout this film. "Pootie Tang grew up in a small town outside of Gary, Illinois. That town was... CHICAGO!" Little things like that, and big things like Pootie's pseudo-sentence-fragments. The soundtrack fits so perfectly with the movie. I think they should've used that Dirty Dee song more. Pootie's song, which was just silence, and the father busting in to tell his son to "turn that noise down NOW!" The western-style sequence where they basically use stop-motion to place Pootie and Dirty Dee closer and closer to one another until they're touching and then they've suddenly passed through one another. The belt Pootie's father bought at Piggly-Wiggly for 59 cents. Daddy Tang being the third person mauled by a gorilla at the steel mill. "It's tough out there, Pootie. You got drugs... crime... gorillas..." No attempt to make the monkey look real.

Bob Costas, Robert Vaughn, and the hilarious Dave Attel all lend their hands to the hilarity. I can't even list everything that's great about it because I'd have to put the entire script down. See it,(...)

This movie was showing at the dollar theater near where i live, and i was excited i had a free moment to see it. I love most of Chris Rock's comedy, and i was looking forward to seeing a movie that seemed to be totally goofy from the previews. I was on the floor crying in the first five minutes. This movie is what most comedies should be like, funny. The plot is a joke, the dialouge is a joke, the acting is so good the humor comes across very strong. This movie isn't for everyone though. If you can't enjoy a movie for simply being a good time, then don't watch this movie. On the other hand,if you can look past the fact that it isn't going to be a life-changing movie, but one of the funniest movies you will ever see, then buy this DVD the day it comes out.

Pootie Tang is one of the funniest most original movies to be released in the last twenty years. It is the very definition of a cult classic--misunderstood, hated, loved, and in possession of a devout group of followers. The humor in this movie is absurdity at it's best, and the experience of watching it with people who love it may be a little jarring. If everyone around you is laughing at Pootie's legendary vocabulary, you might start to think that the words have meaning, and in fact, they do. It is post modern, it is deconstructionist, it is academic. Well, maybe not, but it's as funny a movie as you'll ever see. It's nothing if not original.

This movie is stupid but funny. It doesn't matter what mood I am in, it always makes me laugh. This is why I watch Pootie Tang.