By
the time Eddie Murphy made Coming to America in 1987, his supernova characteristics were obvious to just about everyone.
No stable celestial being this guy. Murphy’s star is of the exploding variety,
and it released great energy in films like 48HRS., Trading
Places, and Beverly Hills Cop; and then collapsed, black-hole style,
in projects like The Golden Child, Eddie Murphy Raw, and
Beverly Hills Cop II.
Nobody’s perfect, and nobody’s permanent. (Okay, maybe Sean Connery.) If
Murphy needs comfort in considering the disappointments of his career, he can
always look to the likes of John Travolta and Burt Reynolds, two actors whose
career graphs resemble the EKGs of Chihuahuas on amphetamines.
But Murphy started something in Coming to America that may well assure
his future, at least as a character actor. It’s the kind of device that can
make viewers forget about the shortcomings of a film that seems to be trying
too hard (like the new Nutty Professor) or of a central performance that
may be weak or grates on the nerves.
This is, of course, his delight in taking on multiple roles in his films.
In Coming to America, which was a good enough movie not to need
rescuing by any person or gimmick, he played an African prince posing as an
ordinary immigrant — a dual role right there. But he also took on three other
roles. You remember: those three bickering, bantering guys in the barbershop.
As I recall, two black men and an elderly Jewish fellow — all played by
Murphy. Like I say, Coming to America was a surprisingly warm and
old-fashioned film, quite a change for the person who had just given us the
abrasive Beverly Hills Cop II. But the barbershop scenes were perhaps
the funniest in the film.
The Nutty Professor, Eddie’s newest movie and his first since a
dreadful run of films including Vampire in Brooklyn, Beverly Hills
Cop III, Another 48HRS, and Harlem Nights, is a labor of
labor, not love. But for all its rather empty noisiness and a wearying
performance by the star, it’s something of a comeback for Murphy, who clearly
needs one.
Again, he has two roles at the center of the film, that of nutty professor
Sherman Klump, and his substance-induced alter ego, Buddy Love. On the edges
but very much a part of this comic stew are professor Klump’s family, which
includes but is not limited to his mother, father, grandmother, and
grandfather. They are all played riotously by Murphy. The family is gathered
together in two big scenes and in both cases what begins as amusingly intimate
family repartee descends into bodily function comedy of the kind that makes the
campfire scene in Blazing Saddles look like tea time at Tarry House.
Credit Murphy that even this sideshow turns out to be somewhat rib-tickling.
Seeing him disappear into these many and varied characters (he also plays a
Richard Simmons-y exercise guru in other scenes) is an experience not so far
removed from that of watching Olivier succeed Heathcliffe with Richard
III.
Which is not to say we see Shakespeare in Eddie Murphy’s future. What it does
say is that for an actor who has movies assembled around his screen persona as
a comedic leading man, he is surprisingly willing and clearly able to shoot
holes into whatever image his audiences have of him. That’s a good thing. With Lone Star, Filmmaker John Sayles gives us at least his second film (the other is Matewan)
that achieves such a depth of meaning and common experience, of history and
cultural identity, that the descriptive terms “drama” and “historical,” while
accurate, are woefully inadequate. These films are of mythic consequence.
One of the most satisfying recreations one can have after seeing a film like
Lone Star is to ponder the sheer weight and multiplicity of issues,
characters, and observations. And, of course, how generally well they are woven
into a tight fabric. As a weaver, Sayles (as writer, director, and editor) gave
himself his biggest task to date. His tale involves three families, each of a
different ethnicity and all united by the same small Texas border town. Much of
the story is told in flashback, which, if you are portraying three histories,
can only be a formidable challenge to narrative clarity. Along the way, of
course, Sayles must make us aware that the situations of the various characters
exist in larger contexts. Some of the characters become fairly recognizable
mythic archetypes.
Lone Star is not as seamless as Matewan, still Sayles’ best
movie and among the great American films. To my thinking, the film would have
received the exactly the dynamic boost it needed had actors Chris Cooper and
Matthew McConaughey (father and son sheriffs) switched roles. But there is so
much to admire in a film like this, so much to reflect on afterward, that
matters of performance and rhythm assume secondary consideration.
Am I the only one who thinks that Demi Moore has cold, beady eyes?
Maybe it’s just a prejudice born of the lengthening list of incredibly lousy
films in which this inscrutable actress has appeared. (“Inscrutable” because
it’s impossible to know who this woman really is: Like Meg Ryan, there’s no
there there.)
In truth, there are a couple of exceptional performances — one in About
Last Night, opposite Rob Lowe; the other as the naval officer who aids Tom
Cruise in A Few Good Men. In the latter one could see something
approximating warmth and depth.
Striptease comes with one express purpose, to reveal those
money-making, often-written-about and, up until now, discreetly photographed
breasts.
So there they are, right where they should be, and possessing all the apparent
tactile excitement of an unripened honeydew. After seeing them, I thought
surely the filmmakers would include a scene of her deflecting bullets with
them. n
This article appears in July 12 • 1996 and July 12 • 1996 (Cover).