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Filmed over several nights at the Charlotte Coliseum, each of its four title stars chides the audience concerning their true feelings about black-white relations. "It's OK," instructs emcee Steve Harvey, of WB fame, after offering a characteristically unabashed opinion. "I can say that," he assures, as if by exposing the naughty sentiment, like the heroine in a psychological thriller who faces up to a dark subconscious secret, we will all be freed from the constraints of our debilitating intolerance. Perhaps. Perhaps not. But it's a nice notion.
Mr. Harvey, who masterfully provides the cement for their rapid-fire diatribes, introduces each stand-up comic. The other three self-proclaimed kings of comedy are D.L. Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer and Bernie Mac. All four deliver uproarious monologues, albeit in distinctly different styles. And of course, to differentiate who the funniest is would be to split hairs. But then what's a critic for if not to slice an occasional follicle? So here goes:
Laying the all-important groundwork, Mr. Hughley kicks off the festivities by broaching a group of topics that will prove a recurring theme with his compatriots as the evening wears on: What African-American folks are really like, what white folks are really like, sex and the middle-aged man, and an unmitigated disdain for all things hip-hop. Seemingly the most structured, though it's probably just that it shows, there is a tight, studied demeanour in Mr. Hughley's delivery. He is a fine technician, and he sets up his punch lines with the exacting perfection of a master theoretician. Now, if he could just do all that without letting us know it. He might take a lesson from the number two man in the line-up, Cedric the Entertainer.
More raconteurish in approach, Cedric uses his friendly, Smurf-like plumpness to quickly ease him into the good graces of his audience. And so at first blush it may appear that he is the least confrontational among the group. But au contraire, mon frere. It's just that he enters from an angle. He is the deep and sometimes abstract thinker, segueing off into a Gregorian chant at one point just to show the length and breadth of his ken. Spinning the most cerebral of the quartet's material, drifting off into illusory premises to make his comic points, Cedric opines about white people and space travel. "They fantasise," he suggests, "that they will go to the Moon and leave us all behind." He assures that he and his brethren will follow.
Cedric and company also follow the master of ceremonies' lead after he etches a wonderfully self-effacing look at stereotypical black church types. The role of religion in African-American life is both wickedly lampooned and fondly revered. And to a man, the kings of comedy pine for the romantic songs of the post-Motown era. The audience roars at their imitations. The comics draw a generational line in the sand, nostalgically bemoaning the lack of love in gangsta tune lyrics.
Least convincing in that respect, though, is Bernie Mac, holding down the anchor. The most provocative of the crew, the bulk of his monologue is quite funny and in keeping with the established mood. But he is a tad less polished than his cohorts are, and his corporal solutions for dealing with disobedient children are only at first amusing. He tells the bittersweet, perhaps partially true tale, of charitably taking in his drug-addicted sister-in-law's three moppets. We are comically convinced that the manipulative two-year-old, who is the ringleader, and the homosexual six-year-old, who does her bidding, need discipline. But around the fifth or sixth supposedly humorous beating, the shtick gets a mite uncomfortable. No amount of child-rearing frustration can rationalise the curious harping in this area.
Without having traipsed behind the scenes, it would be difficult to estimate exactly how big a role the director played in shaping the final product. Mr. Lee is never shy about sharing his opinion, and it would be interesting to know if, through selective editing, he veered the work in a specific direction. But what is oddly obvious is the rather uncharacteristic lack of creative flourish that Spike Lee exhibits in assembling his concert movie. There is a dearth of gloss and dimension. Splicing is uneventful. And as successful as The Original Kings of Comedy is at tickling our collective funny bone, the filmic presentation is no more artistic than the average TV documentary. While the verite treatment may lend an aura of authenticity to the chronicle, it does nothing to heighten the entertainment experience.
Still, what the motion picture lacks in style, it makes up for in substance. It doesn't fear to tread where others shilly-shally. Because, let's face facts. We see it in too much of the media and in mainstream entertainment venues. The current climate of political correctness remains inhospitable to any meaningful dialogue on America's race problems. Intentional or not, prejudice is perpetuated. But pulling few punches, Messrs. Harvey, Hughley, Mac and Cedric tell it like it is in a non-stop flurry of candid drollery. The honesty is liberating. Being downright funny in the bargain, The Original Kings of Comedy does a real stand-up job of opening up the discussion.
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