Dolemite Is My Name
- The Eddie Murphy-starring Dolemite is funny, and brings to life the people behind 70s Blaxploitation films, but is also a pretty standard story about a guy who never gives up on his dreams.
Full Disclosure: I’m not sure that I’ve ever seen a Blaxploitation film other than Shaft, and I definitely didn’t know anything about Rudy Ray Moore, so I may not be exactly the target audience for this movie. But hopefully, if a movie is good, it should stand on its own.
Review
Can we all just agree that any movie that starts off with the sounds of Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On is off on the right foot? That’s the song playing as we’re introduced to Rudy Ray Moore, a past-his-prime and down-on-his-luck singer and sometimes comedian, as he’s trying to convince a DJ in a lowly record shop to play his old 45s. He doesn’t seem to understand that the world has passed him by and that music like Marvin Gaye’s is the current flavour of the day in the mid-70s.
Moore (played by Eddie Murphy) is determined to make it big though, and when he sees the laughs a homeless guy is getting by telling rhyming, outrageous stories, he creates a character for himself and becomes a huge underground comedy star. I’m not really familiar with the oral tradition of this kind of humour, but it basically seems like a combination of Muhammad Ali-style brags and “yo momma” jokes.
That’s not really what this story is about, though. After seeing a Billy Wilder movie that he and his friends don’t find funny at all, Moore decides to make a movie about Dolemite (the name of his comedic persona), so that people from his community can see something of their own up on the big screen. That’s what Dolemite Is My Name is really about, not necessarily the crass humour of Moore, but about a man refusing to give up on a dream and trying to bring his story to movies.
There are a lot of similarities toThe Disaster Artist, but with two important differences. The first is that inThe Disaster Artist we’re often laughing at the buffoons trying to make their movie, whereas in Dolemite we’re mostly laughing with them. Moore and his friends know they’re making a comedy. The other big difference is that Tommy Wiseau mostly seemed to be making his movie for himself, whereas Moore has an ego, but is portrayed as trying to make the movie for his community.
"Dolemite is my name, and fuckin' up motherfuckers is my game!"
Eddie Murphy was good as Moore, and he’s already been getting some Oscar buzz, something it seems he’s been looking for after his disappointment with Dreamgirls. Some of the buzz is deserved, but I’m not sure it was a brilliant performance. It’s not very nuanced, and as captivating as he can be, it’s hard to forget that you’re watching Eddie muthafuckin’ Murphy playing someone else. He’s a lot of fun, but he doesn’t exactly blend into the role.
On the other hand, Wesley Snipes was fantastic. Murphy finally got his “Wesley Snipes-type” for a movie and damn did it pay off! I think his was the best performance of the film, and if anyone really deserves an Oscar nomination, maybe he should be getting one for Best Supporting Actor. He’ll just have to make sure he looks into paying taxes on all those swag gift bags.
Spoilers Ahead
Snipes was great as D’Urville Martin. It nice to see a comeback.
One of the great things about not knowing anything about Moore before this movie is that I had no idea if he was going to succeed or not. Obviously they made a movie about him for a reason, but there are lots of stories about artists who poured their hearts and souls into something, only not to be recognized in their time. The scene at the end, then, when Moore and friends arrive at the premiere to be greeted by an overflowing crowd of fans, was definitely an uplifting moment. Also touching was Moore choosing not to watch the movie, but instead staying with the fans waiting outside in order to entertain them.
Moore’s generosity in this moment was touching, and was on display numerous times throughout the film, particularly in his relationship with his “protégé” Lady Reed. But that might actually be the biggest problem with this movie. Aside from being a bit brash, Moore didn’t seem to have many flaws. All of the obstacles he faced in the film were external.
It’s a movie about a guy who just kept plugging away until he succeeded. Most of the hardships he experienced came across as minor bumps in the road. And maybe that’s why I wasn’t as impressed with Murphy’s performance as some have been – his character just didn’t seem to have much depth (beyond one quick scene where it’s hinted that his drive to succeed is to prove himself to his absent father). I have no idea if Moore was really that nice in real life, maybe he was, but this portrayal left me wanting a little bit more about the person he was on the inside.
Moore and his crew in all their glory, about to show some Hollywood producers what’s up.
5 Quick Hits
Whoever put this cast together deserves some sort of award. In addition to Murphy and Snipes, the movie had major parts for Keegan-Michael Key, Craig Robinson, Titus Burgess and Mike Epps, and smaller roles for Ron Cephas Jones and a number of other “oh yeah that guy, I’ve seen him in something” actors, and bit parts for Snoop Dogg and Chris Rock. Amazing.
The movie had some funny comments on censorship in the 70s, including an argument that contained the great line, “you can call a guy a cocksucker, but you can’t say he sucks a cock.”
The movie was written by two white guys, and directed by another, Craig Brewer (although he’s done a lot of work on stories grounded in the African-American experience: Hustle & Flow, Empire, Black Snake Moan). This isn’t a comment on if this is good or bad, I was just very surprised to see it when I looked up the movie on IMDb after I watched it.
After opening with Marvin Gaye, most of the music in the movie is 70s funk, which is not only just fun, it was perfect for underscoring the tone and mood for a story about Blaxploitation films.
In the text epilogue it’s noted that many hip-hop artists credit Moore and his rhyming style with being a forerunner to modern rap. I’m sure there’s a Ken Burns-style documentary in there somewhere that would be a fascinating history of how rap evolved before exploding onto the scene with “Rappers Delight” in 1979.
