It’s been a while since Eddie Murphy made us sit up and pay attention. DREAMGIRLS back in 2006, to be specific. He must have known it, too, using the opening of this film to bury the hatchet @ SNL, guest hosting after a two decades’ boycott. The film itself is standard auto-bio fare, a goof-ball Life-Begins-At-Forty tale, foul-mouthed & unexpectedly sweet-natured, about the long gestation of ‘70s rap comedian/actor Rudy Ray Moore, a perennial also-ran on the L.A. scene, as he reinvents himself into larger-than-life/cornier-than-life scatological tall-tale-telling comedian Dolemite. A hit from the git-go with this new alter-ego, he parlays success from record sales of his popular act into a longshot bid as a Blaxploitation movie star, helped (if that’s the word) by his personal posse; a socially-engaged Black Theatre playwright; and a tech crew of skinny white kids fresh out of UCLA film school. (Yes, his D.P. really was Josef von Sternberg’s kid.) If only the story beats didn’t also come straight out of UCLA film school. (And not so fresh.) But Murphy, round of belly, in colorfully uncoordinated ‘70s attire, is so (fill in your own X-rated adjective) entertaining, the by-the-numbers dramaturgy and over-extended running time barely disrupt from his irresistible force personality turn. Worth it for the comic sex scene alone.
ATTENTION MUST BE PAID: Murphy, a serious film buff, knows what he’s doing when he sends Moore & pals off to see Billy Wilder’s flat 1974 version of THE FRONT PAGE. After that, anyone might think they could make a better movie. (Ironically, this late career nadir was Wilder’s only commercial success after THE FORTUNE COOKIE/’66.)
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