Category: Eddie Murphy Actor

YOU PEOPLE

By Marc S. Sanders

You People has me wondering how we could have stepped so mind bogglingly far back in social tolerance and understanding.  I give people far more credit than the foundations that Jonah Hill and Kenya Barris, who wrote the film together, describe in this movie.  (Barris directed, as well.) People cannot be this cruel and stupid, can they?  Someone give me hope! Give me assurances, please!!!!!

You People is a send up of the Meet The Parents formula, or more specifically Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner? In the latter example, an African-American doctor is brought to the home of his Caucasian fiancée to be introduced to her parents.  Later, the woman meets his parents.  There is an understandable sense of surprise for the characters in both scenarios.  Yet, none of the parties carry the instinct to embarrass each other or allow them an opportunity to lie just to impress and speak with moronic naivety.  The film was never catered for big laughs, but rather more towards awareness and understanding. 

With a cast that includes Jonah Hill, along with Julia Louis-Dreyfus and Eddie Murphy, all well known for huge comedic achievements, You People is designed for the laugh out loud moments.  That’s great.  It sounds very promising, and it was a movie I was looking forward to watching.  However, did the comedy have to come at the expense of stereotyping Black Muslims as angry and intimidating and freely dropping the N-word, while White Jews are dumb, ill informed, clumsy lying cocaine users?

The pattern of Barris’ film is very structured.  For every scene of father-in-law to be Eddie Murphy paired with Jonah Hill, there is also a scene on the other side of mother-in-law to be Julia Louis-Dreyfus paired with Lauren London, portraying Hill’s fiancé.  Murphy does his comedic best in expression and stature with or without dark sunglasses on, while Hill sits very uncomfortably next to him, whether it is in the car or at his bachelor party getaway in Las Vegas where his buddies ask him to call his cocaine dealer.  Cuz, you know, all Jewish guys have a go-to cocaine dealer on speed dial. 

Julia Louis-Dreyfus does her comedic best trying to impress Lauren London by acting aware of what a black person has had to endure and over-complimenting her hairstyles and appearance.  She’s ready to go all “Karen” at the front desk of a luxury spa when she suspects racial discrimination towards London’s appearance.  Later, she will commit slapstick sin by accidentally pulling off the hair weave extensions of one of London’s friends.

I refer to comedic best because the two SNL alumni are so good on camera even if their script is nothing but insulting junk, devoid of validity.  Their expressions are reminiscent of Murphy’s best stand up routines and Louis-Dreyfus’ hilarious sitcom portrayals.  However, these collection of scenes are written with an obnoxiously overabundance of cringe and discomfort.  How these characters treat one another is utterly disgraceful.

Upon an initial meeting at the dinner table, a comparison of suffrage by means of black slavery vs the Holocaust is brought up.  You know what?  Neither incident within our world history is worse than the other.  They’re both horrendous and could never merit comparison.  Yet, here they are being presented as punchlines for outrageous comedy in terms of one upmanship.  Murphy’s character, along with Nia Long as his wife, will announce their admiration for Louis Farrakhan, while Julia Louis-Dreyfus will point out the speaker’s antisemitic doctrines.  In response, she will accidentally light fire to Murphy’s prized Muslim hat gifted by the minister.  If I were to translate this mathematically, Black Muslims celebrating antisemitic gospel equates to White Jews as insensitive klutzes. 

You People is nothing but one insulting moment after another.  In every scene, someone is the punchline at the expense of the writers’ unfair and incorrect blanket approach categorization for what these two demographics must be like. What a huge misfire. 

These are some of my favorite comedic actors.  Lauren London even looks like she can hold her own in scenes with her co-stars.  The potential for talent is hard to match here.  There could have been debates as to who should officiate the wedding and what themes the reception should have, or what the bride and groom should wear. Imagine an argument over the cake topper.  Actually, as I recall there are moments like this in the film.  Nevertheless, they dwindle into conclusions that demonstrate Black Muslims should be feared while White Jews are clueless morons. 

As a conservative Caucasian Jew myself, none of what is depicted in You People could be further from the truth.  I’ve known a few Muslim people and I never caught this kind of vibe from them or who they associate with, or what they practice.  I’ve also never felt uncomfortable in their presence.

The failure of this film lies within the insensitivity of its ignorant script.  This movie could have demonstrated a clash of cultures.  Instead, it relies on moments to squirm at uncomfortably with some of the worst people any of us could ever know.

The next time Jonah Hill and Kenya Barris want to make a movie, they need to read a book and speak with who they select for their subject matter.  Even better, just turn on the camera and let Eddie Murphy and Julia Louis-Dreyfus start talking…about anything!  They are far more intelligent and creative than anything on display here.

COMING TO AMERICA

By Marc S. Sanders

Now Coming To America is a special kind of film. It’s rare movie where you’ll find a G rated story wrapped in R rated material and ultimately that is what Eddie Murphy and director John Landis brilliantly achieved.

Murphy plays Prince Akeem living a privileged life in the country of Zamunda where he has his own personal butt wipers and concubines who ensure him the royal penis is clean. He is now of the age where he is ready to meet his bride who has been groomed since birth to accommodate every need and preference the Prince has. However, Akeem is mature enough to realize that he wants to be married to someone who likes him for who he is, and not his wealth and stature. So with his best friend Simi (Arsenio Hall) in tow, they travel to Queens, New York under the guise of poor, humble people to find Akeem’s true love.

The story is Disney like and very simple. The gags are what has allowed Coming To America to hold on to its beloved longevity over thirty years later. It is one of Murphy’s last great films before he resorted to a lot of silly kiddie tripe like Daddy Day Care. This is a film that does a 180 flip on the Beverly Hills Cop storyline. In Cop, Murphy was the loudmouth offensive stranger in strange land. In this film, he remains a stranger, only this time the setting is full of loudmouths; this is Queens after all. Akeem is a lovable guy with good intentions and sensitivity. When he meets Lisa (Shari Headley) the daughter of a McDonald’s rip off franchisee (a hilarious John Amos), he becomes enamored and approaches with care despite her dating a jerk (Eriq La Salle) who inherited his family’s “Soul Glo” hair product enterprise.

The best attraction of the film however are Murphy and Hall’s various other characters they portray like Murphy as Randy Watson, lead singer of the band Sexual Chocolate (you know him as Joe the Policeman from the What’s Going Down? episode of That’s My Momma) and Hall as Reverend Brown who believes “There is a god someWHERE!!!” Not to mention the barbers who hang out beneath their apartment. Murphy and Hall are such a skilled pair of chemistry together. Why didn’t they do more films together? Harlem Knights? Ahem…let’s just not talk about that.

Landis was a good comedy director, a staple of the 1980’s films who would let the talents play for the camera and not try to reinvent the wheel. His approach here is the same as when he directed Murphy with Dan Aykroyd in Trading Places, or when he helmed Michael Jackson’s legendary Thriller music video. He knew these guys knew what they were doing. So, he just positioned the camera and let them go. Coming To America does run a little too long in some moments. I’m impressed by Paula Abdul’s choreography of tribal dancers, but I didn’t need to see all three minutes of it. A few of those moments run long, when all I want to do is get to the next gag or story development.

Still, if you are not a prude, I recommend Coming To America for a family viewing with your pre teen kids. I showed it to my daughter who is at the age when the sheer utterance of a curse word is hysterical; that’s a rite of passage in childhood as far as I’m concerned. The film contains no overt sexually active scenes, but there is some female nudity, and so what? My daughter knows what she is looking at. Bottom line Coming To America is a sweet Cinderella story that kids will love and adults will laugh at, over and over again until they know every line by heart.

EDDIE MURPHY’S RAW

By Marc S. Sanders

There is no way.  NO WAY that Eddie Murphy’s Raw would ever be produced today.  Nearly every sentence is of the highest caliber offense of any modern day societal belief.  Still, Murphy’s expressions and delivery are lightning in a bottle.  You can’t help but at least grin at his close ups and physicality.

This guy is so incredibly bright that only his comedic stand up monologues could actually feel like you are learning from a college professor who offers up what guys like Bill Cosby, Michael Jackson and Mr. T are really like.  At the same time, he’s somewhat frank with how men and women communicate. It’s comedy.  It’s terribly exaggerated like comedy needs to be, but I can’t deny at least some truth in what Murphy talks about.  If there wasn’t even a fraction of validity in his material, then it would never have been funny, and Eddie Murphy’s career would have ended well before the 1980s came to a close. 

BEVERLY HILLS COP II

By Marc S. Sanders

I know. I know. I SHOULDN’T like this movie, but I do.

Beverly Hills Cop II is a sequel that is really an opportunity to see a wide variety of close ups of an Eddie Murphy who was well in his ‘80s prime, releasing one #1 movie after another. Here the viewer is treated to Murphy’s Axel Foley blowing a kiss to himself in the mirror, laughing to himself, tucking his crotch in his tailor made suit, flipping sunglasses on and off, driving a Ferrari, and shamelessly plugging the Detroit Lions all while trying to stop an “Alphabet Bandit” criminal in Beverly Hills, CA.

So there’s really not much here when all the vanity is on Murphy. Well, then what’s to like?

Considering I’m a fan of director Tony Scott, who uses great cinematography in all of his films with quick, tension filled editing, it’s hard to resist.  Most especially here Scott’s film is accompanied with an exceedingly cool and dangerous soundtrack from Harold Faltermeyer. Just the opening scene alone (without Murphy in it) belongs in a better movie. A robbery at a City Deposit bank and then later at a horse track are so well edited that you might tuck your knees into your chest and chew on your thumbnail. Great stuff from Tony Scott that would eventually carry over in films like Crimson Tide, Enemy Of The State, and one of my very favorites True Romance.

There are other good moments in Beverly Hills Cop II, especially a great scene with Gilbert Gottfried, and a few with Paul Reiser as well as a smirk inducing scene with Hugh Hefner.

I shouldn’t like this movie but sue me. It’s a guilty pleasure for me. However, watch the far superior first installment over this one any day of the week.

BEVERLY HILLS COP

By Marc S. Sanders

Who actually wrote the Oscar nominated script to Beverly Hills Cop? Daniel Petrie Jr and Danio Bach, or Eddie Murphy?

Murphy’s lines are delivered so fast and so naturally that it seems impossible they could ever rest on a page. Eddie Murphy is an enormous talent of word play and delivery. I miss this Eddie Murphy. I’m reluctant to welcome the Eddie Murphy of PG related fare of recent years. He just doesn’t look comfortable in that garb.

One of the first R rated films I ever saw in theatres (not THE first, as that honor belongs to the Clint Eastwood classic, Sudden Impact) still holds with its hilarity, and the credit does not belong to just Murphy but the whole cast including John Ashton, Judge Reinhold, Ronnie Cox and even early in career appearances from Jonathan Banks, Bronson Pinchot, and Damon Wayans.

I still haven’t forgotten this theatre experience when I joined my older brother, Brian and his friend Nick at the movie theatre in Ridgewood NJ. Never had I heard an entire packed room of people in the dark on a Saturday night laugh so hard together. It’s likely a moment that impressed my love for movies going forward. Movies could bring all sorts of joy and happiness and escape. Beverly Hills Cop was altogether another thing entirely.

Yes!!!! A foul mouthed cop from Detroit who becomes a stranger in a strange land while visiting Beverly Hills to solve his friend’s murder. That’s a film that’s had a great impact on me. As a writer, director Martin Brest’s film (later to do Midnight Run and Scent Of A Woman) offers a very simple blue print to allow Murphy to run wild. It cuts out a lot of complicated red herrings to just stay on a straight resolution. As Murphy’s Detective Axel Foley (great character name) comes across another development, in walks another great set up.

I compare the frame of Beverly Hills Cop and Eddie Murphy to the first Mission: Impossible film with Tom Cruise. The Cruise film makes a huge oversight. Early on it introduces a huge array of characters for an M:I team and then eliminates them all to hardly be used. It was wall to wall Tom Cruise. He was a producer on that film with much creative control and it felt to me as if he insisted on owning every scene, every line, every moment. It turned me off a little.

Murphy on the other hand plays along with his ensemble. Ashton and Reinhold have great moments all to themselves. I still die laughing out loud as Reinhold tries to subdue a situation by ordering an army of machine gun toting bad guys to lay down their weapons only to be silenced with another round of gunfire. The banana in the tailpipe! Ashton working with Murphy to stop a random robbery at strip joint, and then helping to save him later on from arrest. What about Ashton trying to climb a wall during a shootout?

Then there’s Murphy and Pinchot discussing a weird art piece (“Get the fuck outta here!”). Couldn’t you envision Pinchot and Murphy in another film together?  A shame it hasn’t happened.  (No, I won’t count the dreadful reunion in Beverly Hills Cop III.)

Brest provides great showpieces accompanied by one of the best film soundtracks ever. I will never not listen to “Neutron Dance” by the Pointer Sisters on Sirius XM’s 80s on 8 while recalling this film’s opening scene double rig truck chase. Brest directs a symphonic high energy blend of sight and sound. Plays like an awesome music video. Same goes for Glenn Frey’s “The Heat Is On.” If I ever get an opportunity to visit Detroit, that’s what will be playing in my head.

Orchestrator Harold Faltermeyer’s electronic keyboard deserves much credit as well. His covert, sneaky 5 note tune shaped the Axel Foley character. Faltermeyer only made Murphy even cooler during the heyday of “Miami Vice MTV Cops.”

Beverly Hills Cop remains one of the best films with the longest staying power of the 1980s. It’s a comedy. It’s an action picture. It’s music filled fun with great characters. It’ll always be Eddie Murphy’s best film. I can watch it again and again. I’ll never tire of it.