I watched Life (starring Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence) over the last few days, and I've just got to say that I love that movie. Yeah, I know, I hate Martin Lawrence, but I just can't help it.
I remember the first time I saw it; I don't remember how (some Film Com. perk?), but some of my friends and I wound up with a few free passes, so we checked it out. We were in a theatre full of people that laughed their asses off all through the movie, because they were black and therefore unselfconscious. (I'm not sure what the one has to do with the other, but it's a connection I often notice.)
Now audience appreciation has the ability to make or break a movie, and it really made this one. But it wasn't until I saw it again several months later that I realized just how good it is.
In case you don't know, the story concerns two guys - a pickpocket and a banker - who are framed by the local sheriff to take the fall for the murder he committed, and wind up with twin life sentences in prison. It spans the time from their arrival in prison in the 1930s to the late 1990s, when they finally "get out." It's narrated by a friend at their funeral.
Why do I like it? Well the simplest answer is that the comedy really works. Both Murphy and Lawrence give genuinely good performances, based on a genuinely good comedy script (I specify that it's a comedy script because it's got holes and completely unbelievable bits). And it's not only them. The entire supporting cast contributes to a job-well-done. Somebody appreciate casting director Margery Simkin! This movie is the reason I love Anthony Anderson, Bokeem Woodbine, and Bernie Mac. (To date, there is no other reason that I love Bernie Mac.)
But the real reason that I've seen this movie more than two or three times is this: I'm fascinated by the idea of institutionalization, the way that it is described by Morgan Freeman's Red in The Shawshank Redemption - the idea of being in a prison so long that you're afraid to face the world that's sprung up around it, the idea of a tiny little world the size of a bed and a yard. And you see that in this movie. Once they're accustomed to all the picking and digging that is the punishment side of the experience, you see that they are sitting around with their friends. They almost forget that life exists any other way. And you certainly see it in the scene where a seventy-year-old Martin Lawrence drives the superintendant into town to meet the new warden. Martin gets out of the car, and looks at the 1970s, and then at a mirror at himself, and then he goes back to the car to find out that he'll never be "Out Here."
I remember the first time I saw it; I don't remember how (some Film Com. perk?), but some of my friends and I wound up with a few free passes, so we checked it out. We were in a theatre full of people that laughed their asses off all through the movie, because they were black and therefore unselfconscious. (I'm not sure what the one has to do with the other, but it's a connection I often notice.)
Now audience appreciation has the ability to make or break a movie, and it really made this one. But it wasn't until I saw it again several months later that I realized just how good it is.
In case you don't know, the story concerns two guys - a pickpocket and a banker - who are framed by the local sheriff to take the fall for the murder he committed, and wind up with twin life sentences in prison. It spans the time from their arrival in prison in the 1930s to the late 1990s, when they finally "get out." It's narrated by a friend at their funeral.
Why do I like it? Well the simplest answer is that the comedy really works. Both Murphy and Lawrence give genuinely good performances, based on a genuinely good comedy script (I specify that it's a comedy script because it's got holes and completely unbelievable bits). And it's not only them. The entire supporting cast contributes to a job-well-done. Somebody appreciate casting director Margery Simkin! This movie is the reason I love Anthony Anderson, Bokeem Woodbine, and Bernie Mac. (To date, there is no other reason that I love Bernie Mac.)
But the real reason that I've seen this movie more than two or three times is this: I'm fascinated by the idea of institutionalization, the way that it is described by Morgan Freeman's Red in The Shawshank Redemption - the idea of being in a prison so long that you're afraid to face the world that's sprung up around it, the idea of a tiny little world the size of a bed and a yard. And you see that in this movie. Once they're accustomed to all the picking and digging that is the punishment side of the experience, you see that they are sitting around with their friends. They almost forget that life exists any other way. And you certainly see it in the scene where a seventy-year-old Martin Lawrence drives the superintendant into town to meet the new warden. Martin gets out of the car, and looks at the 1970s, and then at a mirror at himself, and then he goes back to the car to find out that he'll never be "Out Here."
posted by Court at
5:33 PM
