Eddie Murphy delights, shocks and entertains with dead-on celebrity impersonations, observations on '80s love, sex and marriage, a remembrance of Mom's hamburgers and much more.
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Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.
Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.
The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.
Superstar Eddie Murphy makes up some amusing as well as downright funny jokes about love, sex, marriage, alimony, and the differences between his humor and that of Bill Cosby and Richard Pryor in director Robert Townsend's 90-minute film "Eddie Murphy Raw," the stand-up comic's second concert, lensed at New York City's Felt Forum. The former "Saturday Night Live" comedian consistently entertains audiences with his scatological, insightful, and controversial wit. Murphy looks very energetic and his humor sounds fresh and vibrant. If you love Murphy's irreverent sense of humor, you'll enjoy "Raw." The biggest complaint about "Raw" has nothing to do with Murphy's jokes, but director Robert Townsend's lackluster staging. Of course, Murphy is the center of attention, but Townsend never allows lenser Ernst Dickerson to shoot any reaction shots of the crowd splitting their sides with laughter at Murphy's jesting.The film begins with an historic flashback to Eddie as an adolescent telling his family a funny but scatological joke before the concert part of the movie unfolds. Mind you, this opening gambit—referred to as 'the sketch'—was co-scripted by funny man Keenen Ivory Wayans, but this is not archival stuff, strictly a recreation of the event, with Samuel L. Jackson in the Murphy household as Eddie's uncle. The sketch foreshadows Murphy' specialty humor before director Townsend cuts to the real thing, with the comedian showing up. Murphy gets off to a good start with spot-on impersonations of "A-Team" hero Mr. T and pop singer Michael Jackson. Apparently, Mr. T has threatened to take Murphy to ground zero and Murphy regales us with his version before he impersonates Michael Jackson. If you did not know better, you would swear that Murphy is Mr. T when he does Mr. T and the same applies to his version of Michael Jackson. Murphy goes to extremes when he talks about actress Brook Shields attending a ceremony with Jackson. According to Murphy, Jackson did not take Shields to bed, something Eddie would have felt compelled to do. Before he launches into alimony sequence, Murphy chides the guys in the crowd about STDs. The comic talks about Johnny Carson's divorce and that fact that his wife walked away with half of $130-million that she—according to Murphy—had no right to since she didn't cook or clean. This tirade underscores Murphy's decision not to get married without a nuptial agreement. Mind you, as sexist as Murphy gets about dames after dudes, he explains to the women in the audience that guys are born to stray. There is a funny story about the price of fame that deals with Italians who leave the movie "Rocky" pumped up with their own over-inflated egos. They spark a fight in a nightclub and Eddie's bodyguards dive into and by the time everything is over, Murphy winds up getting sued by everybody. When he calls home to speak with his mom, he catches it from his drunken dad who lectures him with Motown lyrics rewritten to serve his point. Some material like Murphy's father feeding them Tonka toys isn't as hilarious. One of the funniest portions of "Raw" concerns a phone call from Bill Cosby who reprimands Murphy for his offensive humor and the reply that Murphy gets from Richard Pryor about Cosby's clean humor. You have to admit that Murphy takes shots at everybody and his homophobic comments probably wouldn't fly today, but the material is still hilarious. Now, "Raw" looks pretty dated and Murphy in 2009 is nowhere near as popular as he was when he made this routine.
This live stand-up isn't just your normal stand-up comedy where you only laugh at half of the stuff and then walkaway forgetting all thats funny about it. Instead this will make you laugh so much you would a have a aching belly and jaw - I couldn't stop smiling for a second.Eddie Murphy is just brilliant(still second to Richard Prior R.I.P) his creative flare shown in this really show everything that a good stand-up is made of and ain't nobody on this level out today. Chris Rock probably being the closest everybody with "good sensors of humours" needs to get this on DVD its so good forget about Def Comedy Jam and all that other rubbish, Eddie Murphy in his prime kicks ass.The jokes to do with Mcdonald's burgers, relationships, sex and Italians are guaranteed to please.
Except for the beginning where you see some Thanksgiving of 1968 where a child is telling a joke (I only saw that once because now I always fast forward to the show). It's a great gift to hear Eddie talk about various stuff and often his physiognomy is especially funny.. He talks about women who nowadays.. (he refers of course to the 80ties (but it's still true) get "half" of what you own if the marriage breaks up. He starts this joke with seeing Johnny Carson on the front page of the Enquirer looking very unhappy and then talking about switching to the story where you see a picture of her wife which he is also mimicking.. getting half of Johnny's 300 million.. And the he keeps talking about relationships in general and how to handle them (some very usable information), about a call from Bill Cosby about Italians after they saw Rocky.. and so on.. If you are not offended by the very adult language this Show is a must see DVD.. And for those who don't speak English that well there are subtitles included.. which you sometimes even can use if your English is good, because sometimes he mumbles a bit.. But go out and buy it.. or at least rent it.. And a little hint to to companies: Release 'Delirious' on DVD. Finally... But as I said.. send the Children to bed first..
Eddie Murphy at his peak in Hollywood had a great deal with the studios, after the money made off of 48 Hours and Trading Places, barely disappointed. This 1987 special is one prominent example. One night this came on TV recently and I could not change the channel. I heard rants on celebrities, celebrity life, romantic life (consisting of pretty much a second act in a way), race, etc, and it was in classic Murphy style. I have heard a lot of romance comedy (sex, little things, different kinds of women), but in this film Murphy takes it to another level. Not only does everything seem to be absolutely real, the stories he tells work almost cinematic ally coming full circle from where they started. And a lot of the humor coming in large doses very quickly- sometimes just from facial expressions- is worth the watch even if you're just in it to get the laughs. As this is my first Eddie Murphy stand-up special (a long-time admirer of his SNL & old-school movie work) I was caught off guard perhaps- I knew his stand-up ranked with pretty high, as it was the kind of material that influenced the likes of Chris Rock. But, as with the anything of worth in stand-up, it has to be off and absurd to really hit for the big laughs, and a couple of times it really knocked in. Some of these you might find if you're digging it, but if you're just a casual fan of Murphy much of the topics he touches on will hit somewhere at you. Not to mention two specific bits (a phone call with Bill Cosby, and a bit around the perfect wife) are as close to genius as the barbershop scenes in Coming to America. If you haven't seen either special I can't say which one to start with, however whatever combustible forces raged round in the late 80's with Murphy (before he seemed to abandon stand-up for acting) are displayed through a natural, usually hysterical performance. And in the moments that aren't big with laughs at the least held my interest. GRADE: A