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Life |
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(1999,
USA)
Director:
Demme, Ted
Starring: Eddie Murphy
; Martin Lawrence
; Lisa Nicole Carson
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Ray Gibson (Eddie Murphy) and Claude Banks (Martin Lawrence) are two New
Yorkers delivering a shipment of bootleg whiskey in the Deep South in
1932. Running afoul of a bigoted sheriff, they soon find themselves
serving a life sentence at hard labor for a murder they didn't commit.
Over the course of their 60-year incarceration, the cantankerous alliance
between the two men deepens into friendship, becoming a metaphor for the
rapidly changing racial attitudes in the outside world of which they are
hardly aware - changes that are beautifully conveyed through several
montages. This prison comedy has all the trademark big laughs you expect
from the two stars - without ever descending to their usual level of
toilet humor - and offers some surprising commentary on segregation,
racial pride and loyalty.
There are the expected cheap laughs at the possibility
of prison rape, but a subplot involving an inmate who accepts his prison
bitch status yet fears rejection upon receiving parole, is sensitively
handled. --Q Syndicate
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