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Eddie Murphy's career takes off (again) |
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Written by Chris Vognar, MCT
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Thursday, 15 February 2007 |
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He prowled the stage in skintight red pants, making gay jokes and dropping a reported 230 F bombs in a single standup routine. But that was the old Eddie Murphy, or, rather, the brash, young Eddie Murphy. No Oscar nomination, no career collapse and rebirth, no talking donkey. Just a hungry, profane comedian on fire, full of his boundless ability to make you drop a jaw and bust a gut.
Yes, we're talking about "Delirious," the ever-quotable, shamelessly offensive 1983 concert that came to DVD last week, just in time for you to try a little movie-star experiment. First, watch "Delirious." Then check out "Dreamgirls" and watch Murphy earn his first Oscar nomination in a rare serious role. Finally, join the cavalcade to "Norbit," in which the 45-year-old star plays three characters and indulges his taste for the vulgar in a more lucrative and now familiar PG-13 format.
Is it all the same guy? Sure. He got older, took some lumps, learned to play the game. But just because the guy's about to win an Oscar doesn't mean he's gone highbrow.
One lesson he's learned: A middle-age star doesn't gain further riches or honors by working blue, especially when he's already mastered the art of being crude without the box-office limitations of an R rating. Just dress in a fat suit, go heavy on bodily humor and watch your language just enough. You don't need to use the F word to appeal to everyone's inner 14-year-old boy.
"Delirious" fans — and if you were a teenager in 1983, you're probably a "Delirious" fan — will remember the film's seamless mix of the tasteless and the sweet. One minute, the star imagines the likes of Mr. T and Jackie Gleason grunting through sodomy (and spreads the dangerous, albeit common, misperception that only gay men get AIDS). The next minute, he's spinning yarns about his pyromaniac Uncle Gus ("That's a fire!") and the ice — cream man.
The same split instinct is at work in "Norbit," in which Murphy borrows a page from his own "Nutty Professor" playbook by playing three characters: Norbit, a sweet-natured nerd who can't stand up for himself; Rasputia, Norbit's grotesque and overbearing wife who makes Martin Lawrence's "Big Momma" look like a model of fragile femininity; and Wong, a caricature of a Chinese restaurant owner who, it might be said, gets some pretty funny lines: "I don't like black. I don't like Jew either. But black and Jew love Chinese food." This is one of those movies that may make you wonder which characters aren't played by Eddie Murphy.
It's also little more than a two-hour fat joke, with benign if childish racial humor and a bit of a nasty streak. How vile is Rasputia? She gleefully plows her car into a little dog (which, of course, comes back in a wheelchair to talk trash, a la "Dr. Dolittle" ).
But "Norbit" also has a tender side, an ice-cream man, if you will.
Our sympathies lie with the title character's childlike naivete and decency. When Norbit explains that he doesn't know how to ride a bicycle, or suffers heartbreak upon discovering that the love of his life (Thandie Newton) is engaged, Murphy sells the pain much as he does in "Dreamgirls," when James "Thunder" Early succumbs to the demons and failures of an R&B star in decline.
"Dreamgirls" has grossed nearly $100 million and earned eight Oscar nods, including Murphy's. "Norbit" will do far better at the box office — as a wise man once said, no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public — and it won't factor into any awards races. Nor was it made to. Here's the irony: Murphy is perhaps more impressive in "Norbit," which he also co-wrote and co-produced, than he is in the awards machine "Dreamgirls."
The Where's Waldo approach to character acting has paid dividends for giants such as Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers. Murphy uses more makeup than either of those guys did, but his achievement shouldn't be diminished. He doesn't just play three characters; he plays three characters who scarcely could have less in common: One of them is Chinese, and all of them are very funny in their own ways. On the other hand, "Norbit" is more Murphy-like than "Dreamgirls" and therefore less of a stretch. It's more lowbrow. It's more "Delirious."
Of course, much has happened to Murphy between "Delirious" and his latest offerings. There were the career-defining hits ("48 Hrs.," "Trading Places," "Beverly Hills Cop"), a wide assortment of flops (including "Vampire in Brooklyn," "Showtime" and "The Adventures of Pluto Nash") and a sprinkling of later success with vehicles that blend the childish, the mean and the naughty Murphy personas ("The Nutty Professor" movies, the "Dr. Dolittle" movies and, now, "Norbit").
In other words, Murphy's rise and fall and rise didn't include a whole lot of stops in "Dreamgirls" territory. His first Oscar nomination, significantly, comes for a role and a movie that stand for very little of his career output.
What would the young man in the red suit have to say about that? Hard to say. But you can bet it would include a few colorful words. | Only registered users can write comments.
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