Unwatchable 2000s Satire Is A Fascinating Trainwreck Streaming For Free
If you’re looking to entertain yourself with an avant-garde, low-budget, blaxploitation satire flick that constantly breaks the fourth wall, then look no further than 2001’s Pootie Tang, which is currently streaming for free on Pluto. Centering on its titular protagonist, who speaks in a made up language composed of over-the-top street talk that’s never fully explained or translated, Pootie Tang is an absolute mess of a film as far as plot and story development go, but so ambitious in a cinematic sense that you can’t help but be enthralled by its disjointed happenings as they’re beamed aggressively into your eyeballs.
As unwatchable as Pootie Tang may be according to writer/director Louis C.K., who was fired from his own film during its crucial editing phases, it’s still worth your time if you watch it – not as a film, but a series of vignettes jam-packed with familiar faces from C.K.’s graduating class who all want to pop off as many jokes as humanly possible without any regard for the fiction that’s established.
In other words, Pootie Tang is so unwatchable that you simply have to see it for yourself.
Kind Of Makes Sense, But Not Really
Pootie Tang centers on its eponymous character (Lance Crouther), who’s a lady’s man, musician, actor, public figure, and badass of the highest order because of how easily he can dole out beatings while never losing his cool. Attributing his powers to a belt that his father, Daddy Tang (Chris Rock), gave him, Pootie Tang seems like an unstoppable force of nature whose positive influence on the nation’s youth has caused the bottom line for LectorCorp to plummet, much to the chagrin of the company’s CEO, Dick Lecter (Robert Vaughn).
Resolving to steal Pootie Tang’s likeness in order to promote cigarettes, booze, fast food, and other products that are deemed harmful by our protagonist through his many public service announcements, Dick does everything within his power to use impersonators to shill to the masses with only one thing in mind: profit at the expense of the nation’s well-being.
Can’t Go Off The Rails Because It Was Never On Them
The above rundown for Pootie Tang tells a concise story of betrayal and corporate greed, but the film barely holds itself together from a narrative standpoint. While a healthy amount of humor comes from Pootie Tang experiencing a number of life-altering incidents, most of these exchanges end with everybody shrugging and quickly segueing to the next scene without ever mentioning what just transpired, simultaneously undermining its own humor while being hilarious in its own right because of how frequently this happens with no regard for the audience.
What’s more, and I think this is a justified criticism, when you have comedians like Chris Rock, Wanda Sykes, Dave Attell, and Todd Barry all trying to pop off jokes at the same time, only so many of them are going to land because you don’t get any meaningful dialogue, but rather a bunch of jokers competing for punchlines instead of moving the story forward.
Streaming Pootie Tang On Tubi
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However, Pootie Tang has a lot going for it thanks to its unique cinematography and direction, which involves comic book transitions, shock-cutting, and insistence on breaking the fourth wall whenever it can elicit a cheap laugh. I can’t say that watching Pootie Tang means you’ve wasted your time because you’ve definitely never seen anything quite like it. But I can’t in good conscience recommend it if you’re looking for a comedy that’s a little more conventional.
As of this writing, you can stream Pootie Tang for free on Pluto.
