Dolemite Is My Name

All hail con­quer­ing king Eddie Mur­phy, mak­ing a vis­i­ble onscreen effort for the first time since 2006’s Dream­girls. For many of the film roles he’s tak­en in this vast inter­im, he’s been coast­ing when not out­right absent, appar­ent­ly wait­ing for the right gig to come along. And it final­ly has.

He’s awake and kick­ing as con­sum­mate show­man Rudy Ray Moore in Craig Brewer’s biopic Dolemite Is My Name, a chron­i­cle of the comedian-musician-actor-filmmaker’s years devel­op­ing the larg­er-than-life Dolemite char­ac­ter and rais­ing him up to cult star­dom. Pitch­ing his voice up a few semi­tones, embrac­ing the slight paunch that made the actu­al Moore a rather unlike­ly love machine, Mur­phy sum­mons the live-wire ener­gy that once made him the biggest name in stand-up and guar­an­teed mon­ey in the bank for stu­dio com­e­dy vehi­cles. It’s good to have him back.

Writ­ers Scott Alexan­der and Lar­ry Karaszews­ki return to the ram­shackle let’s‑put-on-a-show ener­gy of their ear­ly hit, Ed Wood, pre­sum­ably adapt­ing the liveli­est seg­ments of Moore’s Wikipedia arti­cle. Inspired by an area vagrant spout­ing tall tales in off-colour rhyming cou­plets, Moore craft­ed the flam­boy­ant per­sona of Dolemite to give his stage act an orig­i­nal edge. He prid­ed him­self on the skill and cre­ativ­i­ty with which he could fuck up any tri­fling-ass moth­er­fuck­er fool enough to chal­lenge such a pin­na­cle of mas­cu­line poten­cy. Mur­phy has a ball with the brag­gado­cio, and ably han­dles the glimpses into the doubt and inse­cu­ri­ty that plagued Moore offstage.

But aside from the nos­tal­gia-bait sound­track and cos­tum­ing — Sly and the Fam­i­ly Stone goes with wide-lapelled leisure suits like scotch with soda — there’s not a whole lot to savour beyond the amus­ing turns from Mur­phy and a hand­ful of his sup­port­ing play­ers. Things real­ly get up and run­ning when Moore decides to assem­ble a thor­ough­ly DIY movie show­case for Dolemite, and he has to sort through the fun­ny lit­tle calami­ties of filmmaking.

He rounds up a colour­ful array of col­lab­o­ra­tors (stand­outs among them being Kee­gan Michael-Key as the film-within-the-film’s affa­bly super­cil­ious screen­writer, and Wes­ley Snipes as its coke-man­ic direc­tor) and puts up his own mon­ey to realise his dream. His tra­jec­to­ry to suc­cess couldn’t be clear­er, as we wouldn’t be watch­ing a movie about the guy if his­to­ry hadn’t already vin­di­cat­ed him, but there’s ample fun to be had along the way.

Moore’s unlike­ly path to niche star­dom has a point to make about the impor­tance of black art and its abil­i­ty to innate­ly speak to an under­served black audi­ence, but it does so in a ham-fist­ed and self-seri­ous man­ner unbe­fit­ting the feath­er-light, vivid cru­di­ty that pre­cedes it. (This film may con­tain more F‑bombs per capi­ta than any Mur­phy has done before, and it’s not shy about get­ting freaky.)

It all amounts to an enjoy­able if dis­pos­able show­biz foot­note, trad­ing the bizarre love-hate rela­tion­ship of The Dis­as­ter Artist’s cen­tral pair for a one-man show from a dynamo of charis­ma. Mur­phy car­ries the film on his back, just like Moore did for his self-financed indie ground­break­er — maybe he relates to a tal­ent pur­su­ing his artis­tic whims against bet­ter judge­ment and all the odds.

Here’s hop­ing that Actu­al­ly Try­ing Eddie Mur­phy is here to stay, and will soon be attract­ed to more well-round­ed projects. But if you like movies about makin’ movies, then you will with­out a doubt find this shit extra-extra-groovy.