Review: "Dolemite Is My Name"

I went into “Dolemite Is My Name” without any foreknowledge; I only knew that it starred Eddie Murphy and was set in the 1970s. It was not until the film’s end credits that I learned it’s a biopic of a real person, singer/actor/comedian Rudy Ray Moore.

I’m not familiar with Moore’s 1975 film, “Dolemite,” or the ones that followed. I confess I’ve never delved deep into the Blaxploitation genre, as the ones I’ve seen are pretty silly and/or icky.

Interestingly, that’s one of the key themes of the movie: how white and black audiences value different things in their cinematic tastes. For example, nobody depicted in this movie would ever use the word “cinematic.”

There’s a terrific scene where Rudy (Murphy) and his buddies go to see “The Front Page,” a 1974 comedy starring Jack Lemmon and Walter Matthew as squabbling journalists. They peer around at the mostly white audience, laughing it up and enjoying the heck out of the picture, which they find completely unfunny and limp.

Where are the boobies, kung fu fighting and explosions? Rudy demands. That’s what black audiences want to see. So they set out to make their own movie for their own tribe.

It’s the best film role Eddie Murphy has had in years, playing an over-the-hill, 6th-rate comic who works in a record shop by day and does a lame emcee shtick at a local music club at night. He can’t even get the DJ (Snoop Dogg) of the little in-house radio station at the record store to play some of his old R&B 45s.

With an ample belly, thinning patch of hair that he covers with an afro wig and outlandish velour-and-polyester outfits, Murphy’s Rudy Ray Moore is a formerly cool guy grasping at the scraps of his youth. He moved to Los Angeles from his backwater home in Arkansas to make it big, and decades later he’s still small-time.

“I ain’t got nothin’ nobody wants,” he laments.

One day Rudy gets an idea to create a new act out of the boasting and jokes of the local “bums” -- using the parlance of the day – particularly their affinity for a mythological urban hero named Dolemite. His sex-and-braggadocio exploits are used as a common riff. Rudy pays them for their jokes, then assembles them to create the character of Dolemite for himself.

It’s an instant hit, and soon he’s touring the country doing the Dolemite act, cutting comedy records that inch their way up the Billboard charts, and even takes on a protégé in the form of Lady Reed (Da’Vine Joy Randolph), a plus-sized woman who’s spent her life being put down.

Remember how Rudy’s gang was mystified by the white-people comedy? That’s how I felt about the Dolemite act. There don’t appear to be any real jokes, just a series of put-downs and relating of endless sexual exploits. But audiences at black clubs eat it up.

It’s a telling dichotomy: African-Americans, after centuries of degradation, crave loud and boisterous self-affirmation; while privileged whites like me cling to humility as the lost virtue, and find such displays crass.

Despite his success, Rudy decides that to truly be a big star he needs to make a movie. He scrapes together some money and recruits his friends, adds some UCLA film students and a smattering of white actors to play the heavies, and unofficially takes over an abandoned hotel as their studio.

Of course, none of them know what the hell what they’re doing. So D’Urville Martin, an actual name actor played by Wesley Snipes, is recruited to co-star in the picture. Effete and snobby, he initially refuses until he’s offered the director’s chair -- a position he seems to hold only titularly, spending most of his days on the set drinking, having to be prodded to say “Action” or “Cut.”

The rest of the cast includes Mike Epps, Craig Robinson, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Chris Rock, Tituss Burgess, and a few other notables of black Hollywood. But the spotlight is clearly on Murphy here.

It’s an entertaining, thoroughly raunchy movie, directed by Craig Brewer from a screenplay by Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski. (All white guys, it should be noted.)

The movie also serves as an excellent time capsule of the cultural shift in the early- to mid-70s, a time when you could walk into a movie theater and see pornographic movies but record stores wouldn’t carry albums containing too much cursing.

“Dolemite Is My Name” is the story of a man whom popular culture had decided deserved to be a Lilliputian, but harbored gigantic ambitions that would not accept that judgment. Rudy Ray Moore willed himself into the star he felt he should be, despite not having any particular talent.

But he knew what his people wanted, and gave it to them. Whether what they wanted was worthy is above my pay grade.

Review: "Tower Heist"

The tower in “Tower Heist” is, literally, The Tower, a Trump Towers-esque palatial home to the Manhattan super-rich elite who live there and the small army of working-class stiffs who keep their pillows fluffed and the old ladies’ frou-frou dogs walked. The bad guy is a Bernie Madoff-style oligarch who gleefully steals from the rich and the not-so-rich alike, pocketing it all and depending on his money and connections to protect him from the Defarges of the world.

The heist part takes up the second half of the movie, as Ben Stiller leads a team of amateur thieves – and one professional, played by Eddie Murphy – into The Tower penthouse to reclaim their stolen pension money. It’s all about the righteous 99 percent thwarting the evil 1 percent.

It’s like Occupy Wall Street, rewritten as a goofy caper comedy.

I did not buy any of the characters in the movie as real people, and the mechanics of the actual heist doesn’t so much strain credulity as smash it into little pieces and stomp on it. At one point the film asks us to believe that hundreds of thousands of people attending the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade could be looking up into the air at all the floats, and not one of them notices something astonishing taking place at the top of The Tower.

Still, once the actual heist gets going, the movie revs up a decent amount of momentum and finds some sustainable laughs. It’s not quite enough to recommend it, but I’ll admit “Tower Heist” is a lot better than my exceedingly low expectations.

The first thing any potential ticket-buyer needs is to be disabused of the notion that this is a Stiller/Murphy buddy picture. Murphy plays Slide, who remains a fringe character until the 45-minute mark. He’s just some local loudmouth ex-con who shouts at neighbor Josh Kovacs (Stiller) whenever he walks by.

Later, after Josh is canned as the general manager of The Tower for standing up to top resident Arthur Shaw (Alan Alda), he invites Slide to join his crew of bumbling burglars. He reminds Slide they used to be nursery-school classmates, which Josh seems to think means they have a relationship, despite having no true interaction for 40 years.

The lack of any real Murphy/Stiller pairing is the biggest disappointment about “Tower Heist.” Both actors have been stuck in a rut of middlebrow comedies lately, so the idea of a couple of aging but still potent funnymen tag-teaming has a great deal of appeal.

Alas, they’re reduced to a few lame, sniping exchanges: “That’s it! I don’t want to talk to you for the rest of the robbery!”

Director Brett Ratner and screenwriters Ted Griffin and Jeff Nathanson never really kick the action out of tame screwball comedy territory, despite the daring Occupy overtones.

It’s too bad, considering the killer cast they assembled: in addition to Stiller, Murphy and Alda, there’s Casey Affleck, Matthew Broderick, Judd Hirsch, Michael Peña, Téa Leoni and Gabourey Sidibe. That’s five Academy Award nominees by my count – quite a lot of firepower considering the low-wattage material.

Affleck plays Josh’s dim brother-in-law; Peña is Dev’Reaux, the brash new elevator man; Sidibe is Odessa, a Jamaican maid with an outsize personality; Hirsch plays the unctuous Tower boss; and Leoni is the hard-wired FBI agent gunning for Shaw.

I particularly liked Broderick as Fitzhugh, a former Wall Street whiz turned unemployed evictee, who’s got an air of bottled-up middle-aged desperation just waiting to blow. Broderick has gray hair now, a couple of chins and a mid-life spread, but his boyish face still holds a hint of puckish Bueller charm.

Though held back by its sophomoric, self-imposed limitations, “Tower Heist” rises higher than it has any right to.

2.5 stars out of four

Review: "Shrek Forever After"

I'm not seeing blood red about having to sit through more ogre green -- mostly because the fourth installment in Dreamworks' 800-pound animation franchise, "Shrek Forever After," is reasonably entertaining. Certainly, it's a big improvement over the awful "Shrek the Third."

Still, it's clear the only reason this movie has for existing is also green -- the papery kind.

Consider this: Mike Myers (Shrek), Cameron Diaz (Fiona), Eddie Murphy (Donkey) and Antonio Banderas (Puss in Boots) haven't starred in a single non-Shrek hit movie between them in the last few years.

Heck, Myers doesn't even have much of a career these days outside of voicing the un-jolly green giant. (I don't count "The Love Guru," since in time I wrote this sentence, you could have counted its entire box office gross.)

Let's face it, the "Shrek" machine was already growing tired by the first sequel, which at least had a frenetic energy and a boatload of pop culture jokes to keep the momentum going.

By the fourth go-round, the filmmakers are left to rely on rimshot one-liners -- Puss and Donkey call each other a "cat-tastrophe" and "re-donkeylous," respectively -- and overly familiar character quirks: Donkey sings! Puss preens! Fiona frets! etc.

To recap: In the first movie, Shrek learned to set aside his beastly ways and fall in love. In the sequel, he got to meet the in-laws and fight for his, er, woman. In the third flick, he came to terms with becoming a responsible adult and daddy.

So what's the obvious logical step? Yep, the mid-life blues.

Shrek gets fed up with being tied down by a wife and kids and makes a dangerous magical bargain to get a taste of his bachelor days. Of course, he learns to embrace domestic bliss in the end.

What's next? "Shrek: Curse of the Prostate Exam"?

About the only thing that's fresh is the addition of a whole gaggle of ogres. It has seemed awfully suspicious that, up until now, Shrek and his brood have been the only green-skinned folk we've seen.

Shrek bumps into them while traipsing through an alternate reality he helped create. He signed a contract with the mischievous Rumpelstiltskin (Walt Dohrn) to have one day in which everyone is scared of him again. Of course, the sawed-off trickster finds a way to turn the tables so he's the ruler of the land of Far Far Away.

In this universe, Fiona is the chief brigand behind the ogre resistance. Her lieutenant is Brogan (Jon Hamm), Craig Robinson is the chimichanga-spewing cook, and Jane Lynch is the (apparently) only other female ogre.

Turns out Shrek, who we've thought of as a burly behemoth, is actually rather undersized for his race.

Donkey's around, pulling wagons for the army of witches allied with 'Stilstskin. So is Puss, though he's put aside his boots to live the life of a plump, pampered pet kitty.
It's all one big fun -- but pointless -- caper with old friends.

Sum it up this way: Imagine if "Shrek Forever After" were not the fourth movie in a series, but the first. Based on its mild amusements, do you think anybody would be dying to make another, and another, and on? That's wishful thinking.

2.5 stars out of four

Review: "Imagine That"

It's hard to even remember now when Eddie Murphy was the most cutting-edge comedian on the planet. In his stand-up bits and early film roles, he pulled out daring riffs that brazenly touched the third rails of race, gender and social divisions, and paved the way for guys like Chris Rock and Dave Chapelle.

I don't mind that Murphy has morphed into the king of family comedies. He's nearly 50 now -- though he barely looks different from his "48 Hours" days -- and even the hippest prankster must give way to daddy roles. But sometimes, as in his new film "Imagine That," it frankly seems like he's not trying very hard.

"Imagine" is the sort of film that's aimed squarely at children, but will leave most children bored for long stretches. As for the parents, they'll appreciate some of the tender moments where Murphy, playing a bad dad who works all the time, learns to bond with his daughter and live life a little.

But that probably leaves 80 of the movie's 105 minutes that don't seem to be made for anyone.

The movie's saving grace is Yara Shahidi, who plays Murphy's daughter, Olivia. She's cute as can be, of course, but also manages to project some pretty complex emotions for a tyke.

Olivia's problem is that she's living in a fantasy world, and doesn't want to come out. With the aid of a special blanket called a Goo-ga, she communicates with a trio of princesses and a queen. This causes big problems at school, and between daughter and father. It doesn't help that Evan (Murphy) is a financial investor who lives, breathes and eats his work.

When his ex-wife Trish (Nicole Ari Parker) asks him why he even agreed to become a parent, he mumbles that "I didn't think I'd be so bad at it."

Lo and behold, it turns out the Goo-ga really does have magical powers, and can help Evan pick the right companies to invest in. He needs the help, because his workplace rival is Danny Whitefeather (Thomas Haden Church), an American Indian who works some hokum about "dream sparrows" and mystic waterfalls into his pitches, and wows the clients.

So soon Evan is doing things like dancing in public and singing ridiculous songs to appease some invisible fairies with names like Sapata and Kupata, and delighting his daughter in the process.

Little kids will likely giggle at the notion of a grown-up acting the fool, but often these scenes devolve into moments that are just plain uncomfortable -- such as when Evan sneaks into a neighbor's house where Olivia is at a sleep-over so he can steal the Goo-ga for a big presentation he has the next morning.

It's hard to imagine that we used to look forward to a new Eddie Murphy movie, instead of wondering if it'll be tolerable. "Imagine That" manages to meet our shrunken expectations.

2 stars