Life (1999) 1/2 star out of 4. Starring Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence
In Life, Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence play two young men wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.
After about an hour of watching this movie, you begin to realize how their characters feel. Fortunately, for audience members there's a chance to escape the nearest exit.
This, undoubtedly, is Eddie Murphy's worst movie and that's an accomplishment. Remember The Golden Child, Harlem Nights? Compared to Life, they look like Citizen Kane.
Life is long, predictable, foul-mouthed and only intermittently funny. Its 100-minute running time feels like 100 years. Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone's script basically consist of Murphy and Lawrence referring to everyone around them as "motherf...s" or "n ..... s."
You lose count how many times both those obnoxious, offensive words are used. And if that all it takes to write a script, than any illiterate jackass can sit at a word processor and compose a movie.
But, like Life, it will probably stink.
To be honest, the screening audience surrounding me in the theater yucked it up. But these were the same people who howled at all the flatulence and fat jokes as well.
Life is as sophisticated as a belch. It's crude and stereotypical. Years ago, movies stereotypically portrayed blacks subservient, second-class people, good for being only maids and servants. For the most part, the lot of blacks and other racial groups have improved.
But a new, more insidious stereotype is creeping into movies. In many recent films, through actors such as Murphy and Chris Tuckers, blacks are presented as fast-talking, conniving, scam artists or hip-hop, gun-crazy, sex-crazed youths.
Both sets of caricatures are demeaning. And the fault does not rest with the actors. They have to eat, too. It is with the people who write the scripts, the studios who green-light the projects and the audiences who accept these portrayals without protest.
Life's only redeeming virtue is the artistry of makeup legend Rick Baker who flawlessly ages Murphy and Lawrence into 90 year olds.
Otherwise, Life is an embarrassment, a blot on the resumes of those associated with it. See it at your own risk.
Bob Bloom is the film critic at the Journal and Courier in Lafayette, IN. He can be reached by e-mail at bloom@journal-courier.com or at cbloom@iquest.net
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