Crimes
— Shamelessly ripping off Caddyshack
— Degrading OutKast's progressive
legacy by putting Big Boi at the center of a raunchy broad comedy filled with
antiquated stereotypes and gratuitous farting
— Making whiplash-inducing tonal
shifts between scatological crudeness and earnest drama involving Big Boi's
attempts to avenge his father's humiliation at the hands of the racist country
club where he worked
— Prominently billing Lil' Wayne
for a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo without any dialogue
Defenders: Star Faizon Love, director/co-writer Don Michael
Paul
Tone of commentary: Like the film it accompanies, the commentary track
for Who's Your Caddy? is largely a broad culture-clash comedy,
with Paul in the role of the clueless white guy who doesn't understand the
mysterious ways of the Negro, and Love as the crazy, sass-talking black guy.
Love spends much of the commentary explaining African-American culture to his
hapless director. If Paul were to run for Whitest Man In America, he could use
this commentary as his platform. Here are some choice excerpts:
[The scene: Finesse Mitchell sabotages
the opposing team's horses before a big polo match.]
Paul: We also got some heat for this, that it was
stereotypical that he was feeding the horse weed. That's probably true. What do
you think, Faizon?
Love: I think you need to get out of the whole film
business if you think this is… What do you mean "stereotypical"?
Paul: We've got a dreadlocked guy feeding the horse a bag
of weed.
Paul: So he's back to Prince? When did he go back to
Prince?
Love: [With uncharacteristic gravity.] About five years
ago, Don.
Paul: What's a Proper? Trying to be educated and smart?
Paul: Help me out with this "Hell to the naw." Is that
something she really says? It basically means "Hell no"?
Love: 4:20 is the code for weed. Did you know that?
Paul: No. Why? Are you being serious?
Love: 4:20. It's weed.
Paul: For all the people who thought it was racist to show
a black woman frying chicken, I'm sorry.
Love: For all the people who thought this was racist, you
should say "Suck my dick, suck my dick!" [Giggles uproariously for way too long.]
Paul: [About a song that plays late in the film.] This is
what they call "backpacking rap."
What went wrong: The filmmakers didn't have enough time or money to
shoot some crucial scenes fleshing out the story. Shooting was shut down at one
point due to SAG problems. Actors (including Love) weren't getting paid and
threatened to leave. The studio callously pressured a reluctant Paul (who
characteristically grills Love on the enduring appeal of fart humor) into
shooting a scene based around Love's explosive golf-course flatulence. A slew
of scenes and characters were added with eight days of shooting left. Paul
jokes that Love, whom he lovingly calls his "problem child" due to his lateness
and irritability, clearly didn't read the script, since so much of his dialogue
was improvised. He also refused to do more than three takes of any scene, or
fly in a helicopter.
Comments on the cast: Paul and Love heap praise on pretty much every cast
member, but remain curiously silent about their heavy, Jeffrey Jones. Late in
the commentary, Paul awkwardly admits, "Jeffrey Jones had a tough time doing
this movie. You guys made it a little tough on him… you guys are tough." Love
earns special praise for refusing to wear a sock over his genitals in a scene
where he freaks out an uptight white guy by prancing around naked. Paul was
reluctant to let Andy Milonakis use what he squeamishly calls "the ninja word"
until a visiting Eddie Murphy (who was dating producer Tracey Edmonds at the
time) convinced him that it was okay. That's right: Paul used the man behind Norbit to gauge what was and wasn't offensive in a raunchy black comedy.
Inevitable dash of pretension: Love on shooting low-budget style: "That's
the brilliance, to me, in this kind of filmmaking. Anybody can fucking take $150
million to duplicate something, but to take less money and create this right
here is true art." This marks the first time the words "brilliance" and "art"
have ever been used in connection with Who's Your Caddy?
The commentary in a nutshell: "After this scene, Faizon had to give me a whole
education on ghost-riding the whip."