Pootie Tang (2001)

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	2001
Running Time	78:02
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Programme
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Louis C.K.
Studio Distributor	Paramount Home Entertainment	Starring	Lance Crouther J.B. Smoove Jennifer Coolidge Robert Vaughn Chris Rock
Case	?
RPI	$39.95	Music	QD3 Prince Paul

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	576i (PAL)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English English for the Hearing Impaired French Czech Hungarian Polish Swedish Danish Norwegian Finnish Dutch Bulgarian Icelandic Portuguese Hebrew Greek Croatian Slovenian Arabic Turkish Romanian	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	Yes, some deleted scenes and out-takes

    Louis C.K., the writer of Down To Earth, has managed to write and direct an even weaker comedy.

    Pootie Tang is a surreal and absurd post-modern comedy about the adventures of a rapper and movie star called Pootie Tang (Lance Crouther), who speaks in a nonsensical form of urban black English. Pootie is known as 'da Da Vinci of A** Kickin', and he regularly deals out blows with his belt to criminals and others who are up to no good. But Pootie also has a softer side, and he cares greatly for the plight of his fellow urban Afro-Americans. Pootie is very popular, and after appearing in a number of public service announcements, sales of cigarettes, junk food and alcohol dive dramatically. This upsets White Corporate America, and from their evil boardrooms, a plot is hatched to take care of Pootie. Derivative of the Biblical story of Samson and Delilah, Pootie draws his strength from his belt. A sultry, white seductress named Ireenie (Jennifer Coolidge), is despatched to find out the secret of Pootie's strength, and take it from him. Ireenie is the "Darth Vader of T n' A', but will she succeed? Will Pootie surrender to this white woman and become just another black 'punk b*tch sellout'?

    This movie appears to be squarely aimed at young Afro-American teens. While I would never normally refer to racial issues in a review, this movie is clearly about them. It has some very serious social comments to make about greedy White Corporate America, who make a disproportionate amount of their profits from malt whisky and cheap cigarettes from Black Americans. It also highlights social problems relating to a lack of education and sanitation in some urban black communities. In the movie, we have whites entering the black ghettos to pick up black prostitutes, or to buy/sell drugs, or to exploit them economically. The issue of violence by black men toward their women is also briefly addressed. While these are all pressing social issues, it doesn't make for a very funny comedy. Indeed, like Down To Earth, the movie feels much, much longer than its running time. It is slow, laboured, and weak, although it does manage to raise some pressing social issues in US cities.

Video

    Paramount have again turned out a disc which overall is of great quality.

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced, which is pretty close to its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1.

    The transfer is reasonably sharp, but occasionally it becomes a little soft, such as the shot of the fruit cart at 10:43 or the boardroom at 14:03. Very rarely, some scenes even become blurry, such as the scene on the farm at 46:25, but the source material might be to blame there. The shadow detail is acceptable.

    The colour is good overall, with accurate flesh tones. Some scenes do appear poorly lit, which makes them a little dark.

    There were no MPEG artefacts to complain of.

    Film-to-video artefacts were present in the form of aliasing, such as the shimmer on the car grille at 2:14, or the shimmer on the grille on the side of the bus at 44:19. There was also some very, very slight telecine wobble, most noticeably during the opening credits at 1:21.

    Small film artefacts appeared throughout, and larger examples can be seen at 3:56 and 6:53.

    21 sets of subtitles are offered. The English subtitles are simplified but accurate.

    This is a single-layered disc, which is acceptable considering the length of the content.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There is only one audio option on this disc, an English Dolby Digital 5.1 audio track.

    The dialogue quality and audio sync have no major problems, although there appear to be some intentionally out-of-sync moments for effect.

    The musical score is credited to QD3, and Prince Paul provides some additional music. The entire score is Hip Hop orientated, which suits the movie well.

    The surround presence and activity is surprising for a dialogue-based comedy. The rears boom out the Hip Hop score, and also effectively add to the overall ambience.

    The subwoofer is also utilised very effectively throughout for the Hip Hop score, and there is some seriously deep bass. Indeed, I turned the volume of my subwoofer down at one point. It also occasionally adds to some of the effects.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    There are few extras.

Menu

    A very simple menu, presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, 16x9 enhanced. It is static and silent.

Theatrical Trailer (1:42)

    Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, non-16x9 enhanced, with Dolby Digital 2.0 audio.

    Pootie Tang was released on DVD in Region 1 in November 2001.

    The Region 4 DVD misses out on:

• English Dolby Digital stereo surround-encoded sound track
• Dual-layer disc

    The Region 1 DVD misses out on:

• 19 sets of subtitles

    I would call it even, as this DVD does not suffer for being single layered.

    I'm not surprised that Pootie Tang was not heavily marketed here. Indeed, I would be surprised if it even got a theatrical release. If you're looking for laughs, I would recommend that you look elsewhere.

    The video quality is good overall.

    The audio quality is very good.

    The extras are really not worth mentioning.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall