THIRTY YEARS LATER, BOOMERANG REMAINS A PIONEERING BLACK CELEBRATION

THE FIRST TIME I watched Boomerang, I didn’t fully appreciate it for what it was.

Sure, it was the movie that first educated me on the importance of coordinating my clothes (rest in power, John Witherspoon). And as the eccentric supermodel Strangé, Grace Jones certainly left an impression with her formidable screen presence. But the significance of the movie with regards to both Eddie Murphy’s career and the Black movie landscape of the ’90s was lost on the teenage Amon.

Many years and rewatches later, that’s changed. Directed by Reginald Hudlin and with a powerhouse cast including Halle Berry, Robin Givens and Chris Rock (in his debut role), the tale of Marcus Graham — a womaniser who meets his match in Berry’s no-nonsense Angela — is one of the funniest and most quotable films in Murphy’s oeuvre. It’s not just one of the best Black romantic comedies. It’s one of the best romantic comedies, period.

Yet it’s also much more. One of many reasons why Boomerang has stood the test of time beyond its potent romcom credentials is the world the movie takes place in. An all-black cast playing successful characters while looking incredibly suave (Murphy sure knows how to rock a mock turtleneck) is not something you saw often in the ’90s, and it just emphasised how far ahead of the game this movie was.

In 1992, I wasn’t the only one who didn’t fully grasp what Boomerang was doing, but the white critics who took the film to task didn’t have the excuse of youth. Their reaction was so irksome that Murphy felt compelled to write an op-ed in

The LA Times two weeks after the film’s release. In it, he called out those who dismissed

Boomerang as a fantasy because of the successful Black world that was depicted, while defending it against accusations of racism because of the all-black cast. “For every step we inch forward, for each iota of progress, there always will be those trying to knock us back down, and there always will be some who cannot accept our success,” he wrote.

There’s something to be said for the fact that 30 years on, a movie that has next to no white characters is no longer a rarity. But the cultural bias that reared its ugly head then still pops up today, and the battle for equal treatment that Murphy demanded then is still needed now. That’s why we still need more films like

Boomerang to help push the needle in the right direction.

AMON WARMANN chews over the main moment in Black film and TV this month

Back at ya: Boomerang (starring Eddie Murphy and Robin Givens), put through the critical wringer on its release in 1992, has proved an enduring romcom classic.