Life

USA 1999

Reviewed by Philip Kemp

Synopsis

Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.

Harlem, 1932. Rayford Gibson, a slick hustler, owes money to gang boss Spanky Johnson. Bank teller Claude Banks takes his fiancée to dinner at Spanky's club but can't pay the bill. To settle their debts, Spanky sends Ray and Claude to Mississippi to collect some bootleg liquor. On arrival Ray is fleeced in a poker game by card-sharp Winston Hancock. Hancock is killed by corrupt sheriff Warren Pike, who frames Ray and Claude for the murder. They get life with hard labour in the Mississippi State Penitentiary.

Ray and Claude are placed under the brutal Sergeant Dillard. With their New York ways they clash with the other black cons, but after Ray loses a fight with the massive Goldmouth they are accepted. The pair make an escape bid, but are recaptured. In 1944, a young mute, Can't Get Right, joins the camp's baseball team and proves a natural hitter. He also impregnates the warden's daughter. The other cons conspire to conceal the baby's paternity. Can't Get Right is talent-scouted for Pittsburgh and released, but Ray and Claude fail to gain release as his trainers.

In 1972 liberal warden Dexter Wilkins makes Ray and Claude his houseservants. When Sheriff Pike arrives for a pheasant shoot, Ray realises he was Hancock's murderer. Pike tries to shoot him but is killed by Wilkins, who hushes up the affair and promises Ray and Claude a pardon. He dies that night of a heart attack. In 1997 Ray and Claude start a fire, having lifted two bodies from the morgue to pass for theirs, and escape. While their funeral takes place, the pair sit happily together in Yankee Stadium.

Review

Life crosses The Shawshank Redemption with The Odd Couple and tosses in elements of Eddie Murphy's disastrous 1989 directorial debut Harlem Nights (where Murphy and Richard Pryor were the mismatched squabbling buddies). It aims to be a comedy with serious overtones, or maybe a prison movie with comic elements, and above all a celebration of friendship and the indomitability of the human spirit. On all of these counts it fails. It's unfunny, it lacks excitement, tension or even a sense of oppression, and it never involves us for a moment with its characters. The action covers 65 years and feels like it.

The film's production notes refer to Murphy and his co-star Martin Lawrence as "comedy legends", but in whose lexicon? With his recent remake of The Nutty Professor, Murphy extended his range, but Life finds him slipping back into his familiar street-smart persona. Lawrence's Claude, the would-be sober bank clerk, is evidently intended as chalk to Murphy's cheese, but the two are never sufficiently contrasted for the tensions between them to bite. Nor do they strike comic sparks off each other - Lawrence lacks presence and Murphy seems to be running on auto-pilot. Their constant bickering and on-off friendship soon become unmotivated and wearisome. Shorn of a central impetus, the comedy and drama cancel each other out. The script by Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone is as lacklustre and derivative as their noir-wannabe Destiny Turns On the Radio. The attempt to parody the famous "I am Spartacus" moment from Kubrick's epic feels woefully over-contrived.

Attempts to underline the brutality and racism of Deep South jails are undercut at every turn by a desire to keep the tone light. Beaten up, clubbed with rifle butts, slammed in solitary sweat boxes, Ray and Claude show remarkably few scars. After one ritual initiation fight, all their fellow cons turn into amiable eccentrics, and the threat of male rape is reduced to a wistful pass from a soft-spoken gay prisoner. At one point, the passage of years is indicated by a 30s-style newsreel montage; but shots of Pearl Harbor, marching troops and the like merely prompt the unwonted thought that, on this film's easygoing showing, life in the Mississippi State Pen was preferable to being a World War II conscript.

Credits

Producers
Brian Grazer
Eddie Murphy
Screenplay
Robert Ramsey
Matthew Stone
Director of Photography
Geoffrey Simpson
Editor
Jeffrey Wolf
Production Designer
Dan Bishop
Music
Wyclef Jean
©Universal Studios
Production Companies
Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment present a Brian Grazer production
Executive Producers
Karen Kehela
James D. Brubaker
Co-producer
James Whitaker
Associate Producer
Tina L. Fortenberry
Production Supervisors
Janet Wattles
Arlene G. Kehela
Production Co-ordinators
Jane Everett
Sacramento Unit:
Gretchen Bryn Van Zeebroeck
Location Consultant
Sacramento Unit:
Linda Emmons-Cunningham
Production Co-ordinator
New York Unit:
Dawn Murphy Riley
Unit Production Manager
Main/New York Unit:
James D. Brubaker
Supervising Location Manager
Arlene G. Kehela
Location Manager
David Thornsberry
Post-production Supervisor
Sharron L. Cannon
2nd Unit Director
2nd Unit Plate Shoot:
Don M. McCuaig
Assistant Directors
Josh King
Marcei A. Brubaker
Evan L. Gilner
Marisa Ferrey
Thomas Harper
New York Unit:
Josh King
Marcei A. Brubaker
Raymond Quinlan
Stephen Booth
Script Supervisor
Susan Bierbaum
Casting
Margery Simkin
Associate:
Carmen Cuba
Voice:
Loop du Jour
2nd Unit Director of Photography
2nd Unit Plate Shoot:
Don M. McCuaig
Camera Operators
Billy O'Drobinak
Harry Garvin
New York Unit:
Ken Ferris
Steadicam Operator
Harry Garvin
Rear Projection Effects
Bill Hansard
Flashback Effect
Balsmeyer & Everett, Inc
Calendar Effects in Montage
Imaginary Forces
Special Effects Co-ordinator
Dan Sudick
Special Effects Foreman
Robert Olmstead
Special Effects
Bruce Richter
Hal A. Bigger
Roy Augenstein
Robert Lamberth
Graphic Designer
Susan A. Burig
Additional Editor
Martin Levenstein
Associate Editor
Geoffrey O'Brien
Art Director
Jeff Knipp
Set Designers
Maria Baker
Mary Finn
Joshua Lusby
Lori Rowbotham
Set Decorator
John Anderson
Production Illustrator
Tom Lay
Storyboard Artist
Alan Hoffman
Costume Designer
Lucy Corrigan
Costume Supervisor
James Tyson
Costume Illustrator
Michele Michel
Wardrobe Supervisor
New York Unit:
Daniel J. Adkins
Make-up
Toy R. Van Lierop
Kim Davis
Key Artists:
Judy Murdock
Joseph M. Regina
Hair
Stacey Morris
Percy Burris
Key Stylists:
Julia L. Walker
Sterfon Demings
Stylists:
Deena Adair
Louisa V. Anthony
Special Make-up Effects
Rick Baker
Special Effects Make-up
Rick Baker Crew
David Leroy Anderson
Kevin Haney
Kazuhiro Tsuji
Toni G
Bill Corso
Will Huff
Mark Shostrum
Greg Nelson
Sculptors/Designers:
Kazuhiro Tsuji
Mitch Devane
Aaron Sims
Mold Department Supervisor:
Jim McLoughlin
Mold Technicians:
Gil Liberto
David Matherly
Roger Borelli
David Beneke
Frank Rydberg
Rob Lan
Clayton Martinez
Dentures:
Art Sakamoto
Hair Department Supervisor:
Sylvia Nava
Hair Technician:
Audrey Goetz
Costume Department Supervisor:
Claire Flewin
Costumer:
Maria Sundeen
Foam Department Supervisor:
Roland Blancaflor
Foam Technician:
Richard Davison
Paint Department
Supervisor:
Tom Gilliland
Title Design
Nina Saxon
Opticals/Tittles
Pacific Title/Mirage
Score Orchestrations/Conductor
Sonny Kompanek
Music Supervisor
Amanda Scheer-Demme
Music Co-ordinator
Buck Damon
Supervising Music Editor
Allan K. Rosen
Music Editor
Patty Von Arx
Music Scoring Mixer
John J. Cevetello
Soundtrack
"Wake Up Everybody" by Gene McFadden, John Whitehead, Victor Carstarphen, performed by Bobby Pardlo; "Drop Me Off in Harlem" by Duke Ellington, Nick Kenny, performed by Dawn Robinson; "That's All Right" by James Lane, performed by Jimmy Rodgers; "Two-Timin' Woman" by William Weldon, performed by Casey Bill Weldon; "Banana in Your Fruit Basket", "Let Me Roll Your Lemon" by A. Chatmon, performed by Bo Carter; "Parchman Farm Blues" by/performed by Bukka White; "Down by the Riverside" (trad), performed by Annie Pavageau and The Morning Star Choir; "King Size Papa" by Benny Carter, Paul Vandervoort; "When My Man Comes Home" by J. Mayo Williams, Buddy Johnson, performed by Buddy Johnson; "New Day" by Wyclef Jean, Jerry 'Wonder' Duplessis, performed by Wyclef Jean; "In the Upper Room" by Mahalia Jackson, Bobby Smith; "Stimulate Me" by R. Kelly, R. Hamilton, S. Sledge, performed by Destiny's Child featuring Vegas Cats; "What Would You Do?" by Wyclef Jean, Jerry 'Wonder' Duplessis, performed by City High; "Life" by R. Kelly, performed by K-Ci & Jo Jo; "Fortunate" by R. Kelly, performed by Maxwell
Sound Mixer
Russell Williams II
Re-recording Mixers
Steve Maslow
Gregg Landaker
Recordists
Brion Paccassi
Frank Fleming
Supervising Sound Editors
Michael Hilkene
Co:
Bob Fitzgerald
Dialogue Editors
Gaston Biraben
Avram Gold
Hari Ryatt
Additional Sound Effects Recording
Ken J. Johnson
Sound Effects Editors
Odin Benitez
David Grimaldi
Randall Guth
Michael Jonascu
Daniel E. Yale
ADR
LA Mixers:
Doc Kane
Tom O'Connell
Editors:
Bobbi Banks
Clifford Latimer
Foley
Supervisor:
Solange S. Schwalbe
Artists:
Dan O'Connell
John Cucci
Foley
Recordist:
Linda Lew
Mixer:
James Ashwill
Editors:
Alexandra Gonzales
Paul N.J. Ottosson
Victoria Sampson
C.T. Welch
John O. Wilde
Aerial Co-ordinator
Peter J. McKernan
Cast Associates
Joseph P. Rappa
Steve Kehela
Paul F. Boscarino
Adrienne G. Riggins
Raimond G. Lane jr
Eduardo Vazquez
Kevin Warendorp
Stunt Co-ordinator
Alan Oliney
Boss Wrangler
Clay Lilley
Wranglers
Gordon A. Spencer
Thomas V. Mitchell
Cast
Eddie Murphy
Rayford Gibson
Martin Lawrence
Claude Banks
Obba Babatundé
Willie Long
Ned Beatty
Dexter Wilkins
Bernie Mac
Jangle Leg
Miguel A. Nuñez Jr
Biscuit
Clarence Williams III
Winston Hancock
Bokeem Woodbine
Can't Get Right
Barry Shabaka Henley
Pokerface
Brent Jennings
Hoppin' Bob
Poppy Montgomery
older Mae Rose
Guy Torry
Radio
Lisa Nicole Carson
Sylvia
O'Neal Compton
Superintendent Abernathy
Ned Vaughn
young Sheriff Warren Pike
Noah Emmerich
Stan Blocker
Nick Cassavetes
Sergeant Dillard
R. Lee Ermey
older Sheriff Warren Pike
Michael 'Bear' Taliferro
Goldmouth
Anthony Anderson
Cookie
Rick James
Spanky Johnson
Heavy D
Jake
Bonz Malone
Leon
Sanaa Lathan
Daisy
Allyson Call
young Mae Rose
James D. Brubaker
judge
Walter Jordan
Slim
Brooks Almy
Billy's mama
Hal Havins
Billy
Hildy Brooks
Nurse Doherty
Kenn Whitaker
Isaac
Ernie Banks
bathroom attendant
David Alexander
doctor
Johnny Brown
Blind Reverend Clay
Armelia McQueen
Mrs Clay
Nate Evans
Juke bartender
Todd Everett
deputy at mansion
Don Harvey
man with lantern
Venus De Milo Thomas
Juke Joint waitress
Zaid Farid
Keith Burke
shady cardplayers
Haskell Vaughn Anderson iii
junkie
Steven Barr
Pete Zahradnick
firemen
Kenneth White
deputy
Leonard O. Turner
Superintendent Burke
Garcelle Beauvais
Yvette
Augie Blunt
man in prison
Keith Burke
Quantae Love
Sean Lampkin
trustees at line
James Emory Jr
Goldmouth's son
Bill Gratton
fire inspector
Reamy Hall
Mrs Dillard
Corrie Harris
Ayanna Maharry
Sylvia's girls
George Hartmann
prison guard
Zack Helvey
Captain Tom Burnette
Kimble Jemison
Jordan Mahome
gang bangers
William Taylor
Jay Arlen Jones
bagmen
Oscar Jordan
Juke Joint guitarist
Jordan Lund
funeral chaplain
Bridget Morrow
cocktail waitress
Ronald Lee Moss
bouncer
Betty Murphy
Mrs Abernathy
Walter Powell Jr
waiter
Chris Prevost
pilot
Joseph Rappa
disgruntled fan
Dawn Robinson
club crooner
Leon Sanders
barkeep
Certificate
15
Distributor
United International Pictures (UK) Ltd
9,767 feet
108 minutes 32 seconds
Digital DTS sound/SDDS/Dolby digital
Colour by
DeLuxe
Last Updated: 20 Dec 2011