RAW
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1988 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Ultimately a very downbeat and bitter stand-up comic concert film. The problem is not that the humor is tasteless but that it is not particularly clever. RAW is a short film that has occasional laugh-out-loud jokes but not enough to make it worthwhile. Rating: 0.
I am not sure you can measure a concert film by the same standards by which you measure other films. Certainly a lot of the criteria you would apply to the quality of a dramatic film just do not apply to a concert film--considerations like, "Did the plot make sense?" But then, if one says a concert film is not a dramatic film, can you really say that MY DINNER WITH ANDRE is? It is somewhere in the gray area between drama and concert film. Well, one thing that seems to be called a concert film is a filmed comedy act by a stand-up comic. (If you look at Webster, a single person cannot give a concert, it has to be a *concerted* effort. Eddie Murphy's RAW just barely squeaks by on a technicality.)
And if RAW does just squeak by, that is just about the only place it does squeak. Generally it tends to roar in language that will never make it to commercial television. In fact, part of Murphy's appeal seems to be in the creative ways he finds to use profanity. And his appeal is undeniable and amazing. He has a line of anti-feminist and anti-homosexual patter that would do a Grand Wizard proud, and yet it is considered unobjectionable because it is embedded in profanity, like almonds in a Hershey bar, and hence is funny. It can be a strange world.
RAW begs comparison to other black stand-up comic concert films, particularly those of Richard Pryor and Bill Cosby. Even more than of dramatic films, comparisons of stand-up comics will be a matter of taste, but for my money Murphy comes in a distinct third. Of the three comics Cosby is the funniest. There is nothing I have ever seen Murphy do that has had me laughing like Cosby's dentist routine. From Cosby to Pryor to Murphy the jokes become more bitter, less creative, more profane, and generally less funny. Murphy does a good impression of Cosby telling him to clean up his act, but the profanity that is Murphy's trademark is the least of his faults. Murphy's humor is at bottom very downbeat and often, as when he describes his bowel movements, just not all that interesting. Rate RAW a flat 0 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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mtgzz!leeper@rutgers.rutgers.edu
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