Dolemite Is My Name - Review

Dolemite Is My Name

A NETFLIX Original Film

Based on a true story of a floundering comedian named Rudy Ray Moore (Academy Award nominee Eddie Murphy) we see him early stung by a string of showbiz failures. Then one day on a chance encounter in an ally with a homeless man he has an epiphany that turns him into a word-of-mouth sensation by step onstage as another persona.

Borrowing from the street mythology of 1970s Los Angeles, Moore assumes the persona of Dolemite, a pimp with a cane and an arsenal of obscene fables. However, his ambitions exceed selling bootleg records deemed too racy for mainstream radio stations to play. Moore convinces a social justice-minded dramatist (Keegan-Michael Key) to write his alter ego a film, incorporating kung fu, car chases, and Lady Reed (Da'Vine Joy Randolph), an ex-backup singer who becomes his unexpected comedic foil. Despite clashing with his pretentious director, D'Urville Martin (Wesley Snipes), and countless production hurdles at their studio in the dilapidated Dunbar Hotel, Moore's Dolemite becomes a runaway box office smash and a defining movie of the Blaxploitation era.

REVIEW: The film is totally a lighthearted look at the main subject in Moore. He is seen as an abundantly kind, generous and tender man who figured out the use of clever profanity laced jokes could be the gateway to his lifelong desire to achieving the American dream. More so, it examines how his early childhood of physical and emotional abuse by his father was the singular driving force to making something of his life than being an Arkansas sharecropper.

But the real reason to see this film is the performances of Eddie Murphy and Wesley Snipes, especially more so Murphy. Murphy manages to make you laugh at Moore lack of professional talent, laugh at the clever profane jokes but also deeply sympathize and identify with the humanity in Moore all in the same breath. Murphy uses his natural talent in being funny to also give life to a real human story about a deeply kind and generous man. A performance that would not surprise me at all that he garners some serious Oscar Nomination consideration as Best Actor in 2020.

With a superbly written screenplay “Dolemite Is My Name” is less about Rudy Ray Moore as a comic and more about a man’s deep seeded refusal that he would not let his own discernible lack of talent get in his way. Instead he used his own indomitable determined spirit of achieving his own American dream and by watching his film story it’s a celebration of human perseverance and “I can do anything” underdog desire to be being more than the present.

3.75 Stars