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Wise guy Ray is particularly fond of enunciating the two-worded granddaddy of expletives, skilfully dancing it off his tongue as either a noun or an adjective. But there's a great irony here. True, both Messrs. Murphy and Lawrence have been known to arch movie-going eyebrows with their rampant use of blue material. And in this surprisingly warm-hearted film directed by Ted Demme (Jonathan Silence Of The Lambs Demme's nephew), the invectives fly fast and furious all right. But rarely with gratuitous effect. Their mutual penchant for the potty-mouthed finally finds its venue. After all, how else is one expected to speak in prison? Folks offended by explicit language no matter the context should note that Life fully earns its R rating.
While the down-home philology isn't exactly vintage Henry Higgins, this liberating mini-thesis on the vernacular says volumes about the jailhouse culture in question. At 25, Murphy's Rayford Gibson pronounces @#$%&* one way; at age 70, another. Hope, perennial as well as dashed, the march of time, the pain of racism and the ageing process itself can all be heard in different intonations of the same blasphemy. Yet lest we intellectualise too much, oftentimes the banter, clean as well as profane, is just plain funny.
In another surprise, though the laughs flow well enough when the film isn't focusing on the brutality of prison life or the injustice of black-white relations, Life isn't the raucous romp an all-star teaming of Murphy and Lawrence might imply. For whether you call the seriocomic goings-on a dramicomedy or a comedidram, the mixture of sombre and uproarious elements strikes an uncommon combination of chords. Life pulls heartstrings as well as your leg.
The confluence of disparate moods is not always smooth. But director Demme's genre-bending exercise is powered past these occasionally awkward moments by some very fine acting performances, starting with the principals. Doubtless, Mr. Murphy contributed his share of ad-libs to the script written by Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone. Yet there is a different direction to his performance here; an obvious emphasis on making the material work rather than working the material.
An emotive, in-your-face con man depicted over six decades, Harlem's Rayford Gibson is forever hatching yet another escape plan. Murphy lovingly sketches the cantankerous optimist with notable dimension and sympathetic texture. And while the comedian's name may never appear in the same sentence as the word Oscar, this is nonetheless the kind of respect-gaining portrayal that can cause a Pagliacci to look to the horizon of his career and fantasise the possibilities: i.e. Jackie Gleason in The Hustler, Jerry Lewis in The King Of Comedy and Jim Carrey in The Truman Show.
Selfless in the second banana role, Martin Lawrence proves a team player as reticent Claude, providing just enough flintiness to make the chemistry work in this film's variation on the "Odd Couple". Claude was about to embark on a New York banking career before Ray picked his pocket and that set the whole catastrophe in motion. Now he just wishes the troublemaker would stop making waves. A talented ensemble of motley stereotypes in turn roundly supports the squabbling jailbirds.
Evoking shadows reminiscent of prison movie characters from Sullivan's Travels to The Shawshank Redemption, there is Brent Jennings as Hoppin' Bob, a humorously nervous trustee with a dangerously cocked shotgun; Michael Taliferro as Goldmouth, a cretinous Goliath; Bernie Mac as the chillingly leering Jangle Leg; and Miguel A. Nunez, Jr. as his demurring lover, Biscuit. Ned Beatty, who played a small town Mississippi sheriff in the recently released Cookie's Fortune, climbs the law enforcement career ladder here to portray the uncharacteristically compassionate prison warden Wilkins.
In addition to the slightly rough seas director Demme must navigate when the movie's masks of comedy and tragedy just can't seem to jibe, the challenge of spanning sixty-five years and still keeping the film under two hours dictates some chronological compromises. Yet fine production standards at almost every turn help Life win dispensation from its occasional sins of incongruity. Rick Baker's astonishing makeup goes a long way to convincing audiences that Ray and Claude have indeed shared a lifetime of friendship together. And hip-hopper Wyclef Jean, penning his first movie score, sets the ebb and flow of time to music, trumpeting the arrival of each era with historical savvy.
Going farther out on a philosophical limb than most mainstream movies, this curious mixture of humour and pathos speaks to the black experience with the kind of authority you might expect from Spike Lee. But though Murphy and company approach the sociology with a burlesque spirit, the message is serious. Mixed into Ray and Claude's satirical travail is the solemn suggestion that to be born black in America is to be charged with a crime you didn't commit. The metaphor is extreme. But it may be a very sad fact of Life.
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