THE COMEBACK KID
Murphy resurfaces once again in biopic about clerk-turned-Blaxpoitation actor
It must be 2019, because Eddie Murphy is part of the awards-season conversation again. The versatile actor-comedian-singer has made a virtual career out of the occasional comeback — after a dynamite start in such ’80s touchstones as Trading Places and Beverly Hills Cop, he surfaced every five years or so in a great project — Bowfinger in 1999, Dreamgirls in 2006, Tower Heist in 2011, and now this — while filling the time between with Shrek and dreck: Meet Dave, Norbit, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, etc. The man has been back more times than Terminator — which is also back this year, as it happens.
Dolemite Is My Name features Murphy as Rudy Ray Moore, an actual actor-comedian-singer who in 1975 self-financed, co-wrote and starred in a Blaxploitation crime film called Dolemite. It was directed by first-time filmmaker D’Urville Martin, who also played the villain. The cinematographer was
another first-timer, 24-year-old Nicholas Josef von Sternberg, son of Oscar-nominated director Josef von Sternberg. And the cast included more than a dozen Dolemite Girls, part of (to quote the movie’s poster) “his all-girl army of kung fu killers!”
All this is faithfully reproduced in Dolemite Is My Name, which ends with a series of clips from the real movie, in case you thought these guys were making it up. When we first meet Rudy he’s working in an L.A. record store, having come to Tinseltown to find fame and instead discovered disappointment and disillusionment.
But his luck changes when he decides to record the obscene/ funny ramblings of a local hobo. (Hobo? The film is steeped in such ’70s vernacular, including junkies, winos and jibber-jabber. Can you dig it?) Rudy turns the monologue into a standup routine, which begets a hit record, at which point the self-promoter decides Dolemite is ready for the big screen.
Under the direction of Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow, Black Snake Moan), Rudy’s quest to put together a crew and turn a condemned hotel into studio space has a joyous, Muppets-take-L.A. feel. Wesley Snipes plays the director, Kodi Smit-McPhee the cinematographer, and there’s Keegan-Michael Key, Craig Robinson, Mike Epps and others rounding out the cast. Da’Vine Joy Randolph shines in one of the few female roles of note, playing Lady Reed, who played Queen Bee in the real Dolemite movie.
But it’s Murphy in the midst of it, radiating energy but also sporting a little pot-belly. Not sure if it’s his own or a remnant of his fat-suit days, but he carries it off nicely; he seems genuinely affronted when a would-be film financier tells him he’s “doughier” than most black stars. “You’re no Billy Dee Williams” is a line he hears more than once.
But you can’t keep a good hustler down. With his mix of edgy comedy, musical talent and a burgeoning movie career, Moore in the early 1970s was basically trying to become Eddie Murphy before even Eddie Murphy did. And for that reason, what better man to play him? Murphy brings his usual charm to the role, but also a charming sense of vulnerability. He’s electric, but also acoustic.
Of course, the ironic twist in this let’s-make-a-movie story isn’t in the plot, but the distribution. Dolemite Is My Name is a Netflix title, one of 10 movies the streaming service is releasing on a handful of screens this fall in the hopes of nabbing Oscar glory. But most people will watch it at home.
Last year, Netflix had four such titles, including Roma, which, with its black-and-white cinematographic grandeur, sound design and scenes of people in movie theatres, seemed anathema to the very company that was releasing it.
Dolemite Is My Name is another such beast. Characters reference The Poseidon Adventure, Shaft in Africa, Blackenstein and Deep Throat. They go to see Billy Wilder’s The Front Page, though they can’t see what all the fuss is about. And Dolemite becomes an unexpected blockbuster — as in lines around the block — when it opens in theatres. Moviegoers owe it to the memory of Moore to see it in the same format if they can.