Movie Reviews
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Life (1999) Rating:  (3 out of 5)Starring: Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, Obba Babatundé, Nick Cassavetes.
Anthony Anderson, Barry Shabaka Henley, Brent Jennings,
Bernie Mac, Miguel A. Núñez Jr., Michael Taliferro, Guy Torry, Bokeem Woodbine,
and Ned Beatty.
Despite the presence of the often electric Eddie Murphy
and Martin Lawrence, Life is surprising limp, even lifeless. Actually,
that's not fair. "Subdued" is a better
description. I
mean, it's a fine movie, well-acted, funny in parts, and surprisingly
sweet. But I doubt I'll ever think about this movie again after
this review is written, or ever be tempted to watch it again.
The movie starts off in Harlem in 1932. (Well actually, it
starts off in the graveyard of a prison farm in the present, but
immediately flashes back to 1932). Ray (Murphy) and Claude
(Lawrence) meet in a Harlem nightclub, Club Spanky. Ray is a
pickpocket looking for a good time, and to make a score if
possible. Claude is newly-employed bank teller taking his
girlfriend out for a night on the town. Ray owes
Spanky (Rick James -- yes, Superfreak himself) money, which raises the
question of why he decided to go to Spanky's in the first place.
You'd think he'd could have found a different place to hear jazz.
Ray steals Claude's wallet, which is empty anyway since Claude runs into
some of his own creditors in the restroom first and they take his money as
partial payment for his debt. This leaves Claude without money to
pay his bill. Ray and Claude both end up at the
docks where Spanky is tempted to make an example of them, but Ray talks
him out of it by offering to drive down to Mississippi to pick up a
truck load of high-quality moonshine for Spanky's club. Seeing a
potential profit, Spanky agrees, and Ray and Claude head off along with
a couple of hundred dollars of Spanky's money to buy the booze.
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| Trying to buy some pie |
The trip down is uneventful, except for a brief stop in a segregated
diner, where they try to buy some "whites-only pie."
It's a strange scene frankly. Obviously, there is a social
commentary element to it, but at this point, do we really need to be
told segregation is bad? Plus, as far as the characters go, it
seems implausible that two literate northern blacks would be unaware of
the existence of segregation in the South, although Claude seems quite
clueless about the danger he is in when he persists in trying to get
service. The scene does have a funny payoff later in the movie,
which I'll mention when it comes up.
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| Facing a murder charge |
In Mississippi, they purchase the booze, but then get distracted by
the attractions of a local town. Claude gets picked up by a
good-time girl, who, um, just needs a few dollars to get her mother an
operation. Ray loses their gas money (and his father's silver
watch) in a rigged poker game. For a while, Ray tries to find the
man who cheated him (Winston Hancock played by Clarence Williams III),
and Claude whines about their money situation. They finally leave
the club, and sure enough they run into Winston (literally).
Unfortunately, he's dead, murdered by the local sheriff (Sheriff Pike
played by Ned Vaughn); and even worse,
Ray and Claude are captured by a group of good ol' boys who turn them
over to the cops. Before you can say "Southern justice,"
Ray and Claude find themselves sentenced to life in prison for a murder
they didn't commit.
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| Walking the gauntlet the first
night |
Ray and Claude are sent to a work camp. Their introduction to
prison life is ominous. The head guard informs them of the rules:
there are no fences, but if they cross the "gun line" they'll
be shot. Their first introduction to the other inmates is a prison
movie cliché, with them being forced to walk the gauntlet between rows
of prisoners to get to their bunks. Their first experience with
hard labor -- digging a ditch with pickaxes in the blazing heat --
almost leads to a confrontation with the head guard. But besides
these early scenes of menace, Camp 8 seems more like summer camp than
prison, frankly. No one really hassles Ray and Claude, although
Ray does get into a fight with the biggest man in the prison over a
piece of cornbread, but this scene is played for laughs. The
prison allows conjugal visits, parties, baseball games, and
barbeques. The only prisoner (Biscuit played by Miguel A. Núñez Jr.)
who comes to harm at the hands of the guards brings it upon himself
deliberately. Biscuit is a gay man, who finds that he's only
allowed to acknowledge his sexuality openly in prison. On
hearing of his parole, he becomes despondent and runs across the gun
line in broad daylight. This is a touching scene, although I guess
having scene so many prison movies, I couldn't help but feel that this
was all canned. I mean, do inmates in prisons really feel such
dread over the thought of being set free that they commit suicide?
Certainly high level of recidivism suggest that many convicts can't
function in society after serving time, but that is different from
realizing it consciously and acting on that realization with such
finality.
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| Ray's Boom Boom Room |
At first Ray and Claude talk about little but getting out. They
even try to escape once, but are rapidly recaptured. Claude tries
to work his connection to a New York lawyer, but that comes to
naught. Ray steals a plane at one point, but crashes it into a
swamp. And Ray and Claude scheme to arrange a release for Can't Get Right
(Bokeem Woodbine), a young convict who can really punish a
baseball. Ray and Claude think that if Can't Get Right can get
picked up by a Negro League team, they will be able to come along as his
managers. Of course, this doesn't work out. That seems like
a lot of activity, but really, think about it, the movie spans 65 years
of their lives in prison, and they only actually try to run once.
They're both smart and savvy. You'd think that by the time the 1960s
rolled around, they would have been able to arrange parole for
themselves after serving 30 years in prison. Early on Ray dreams
of getting out and opening a nightclub, Ray's Boom-Boom Room. And
Claude pines for his girlfriend and life on the outside. But you
know what? It almost seems as if prison is a blessing for them.
Being locked up allows them to imagine what might have been rather than
facing the reality of the day-to-day struggle for existence on the
outside. In his dreams, Ray is the owner of a swanky, popular
night spot, but in reality, on the outside he was a pickpocket and
part-time con man, who couldn't pay off his debts, much less find the
funds to open a club. I don't know, I may be reading too much into
it, but that was one thought I had as I considered the movie.
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| New
meaning for the phrase "line up" |
The movie also has a number of other vignettes. The warden's
daughter gives birth to a black baby, leading to a funny scene where the
warden lines up the prisoners and holds the baby up to each one to try
to figure out who's the father. In an homage to Spartacus, each of
the men in the prison step forward one at a time to claim the baby as
his own. In another scene, Claude runs across the gun line to
steal a "whites-only" pie that he's been pining after since
being turned away at the diner on the trip down to Mississippi.
And there is a hysterical scene where Ray and Claude, now in their 80s,
inform a younger convict about how the illicit drugs he's using
were smuggled into the prison -- can you guess? On a more serious note, Ray
and Claude run into Sheriff Pike (now played by R. Lee Emery), who's
slated to become the new superintendent of the prison, and they manage
to get a measure of revenge. Ray even recovers his daddy's watch.
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| Ray and Claude after
12, 40, and 65 years in prison |
But the movie is really about Ray and Claude's relationship.
They fight, makeup, fight some more, stop talking to each other for 28
years, and finally reach an accommodation that recognizes how important
they've become to each other. In the end, they do manage to escape
by faking a fire in the infirmary where they are now living, and the
movie ends with the two nonagenarian enjoying a Yankees game.
It is a happy ending of sorts, but this isn't a feel-good movie. In the
end, these poor guys have lost their whole lives to a corrupt system. It
is hard to walk away without feeling a little sad. And puzzled...
The whole movie's tone is nostalgic, but nostalgic over what? That
said, this is an interesting character study of sorts. The makeup
artist, Rick Baker, got a lot of attention (including an Oscar
nomination) for his work in transforming Murphy and Lawrence from
20-somethings to 90-somethings. And, yes, the makeup is quite
good, but what makes the transformation work is Murphy and Lawrence's
acting. They change their voices and movements so effectively that
it is easy to forget these are young men in makeup. For all of
Murphy's brilliance and energy in comedic and action roles, he could be
a fine dramatic actor if he so desired. The movie is worth seeing
just for Murphy and Lawrence's performances, even if its view of prison
life is somewhat quirky.
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