Dolemite Is My Name (2019)

Director: Craig Brewer

Hilarious "based on a true" underdog story that helps remind all of us of just how great a comic actor Eddie Murphy was and still is.

The movie tells the story of the creation of the blacksploitation movie Dolemite, a crass, low-budget, crime-action movie centered about the title character. Dolemite was the brainchild of then-struggling stand-up comedian Rudy Ray Moore. Inspired by stories from a local vagrant blessed with a dash of the raconteur and a gift for foul language, Moore developed the fictional character Dolemite, a pimp-like figure who spoke in dirty rhymes about his toughness and sexual prowess. The character soon became a huge hit within the black community, and Moore quickly found a modicum of success by selling records of his performances, usually given in night clubs in black neighborhoods. Moore's ultimate dream, though, was to bring the character to the big screen - something highly unlikely, given the blue nature of the character and the seemingly niche fanbase. Yet, the energetic comedian hustles his way to finding the resources to make it happen. He and a ragtag crew of semi-professional actors and young filmmakers manage to cobble together the low-budget action comedy movie of Moore's dreams. By any measure of the mainstream, it should have died on a cutting room floor. Instead, it became one of that year's biggest hits, and a cult classic that still lives to this day.

This was such a fun movie. The origin of Rudy Ray Moore's Dolemite character is compelling enough, but the dramatization of elevating such a clearly adult-oriented persona into a movie star, albeit a cult one, makes this a great overall dramatization of real-life events. I was familiar with Moore and the Dolemite character before seeing this movie, so I knew what to expect to an extent. The pleasant surprise was that my wife, mostly unfamiliar with Moore, seemed to enjoy it just as much as I did. This speaks to the movie's clear strengths.

A curious fun fact which I never knew - Moore's Dolemite
character is widely credited as being the godfather/proto-
type for the rap and hip-hop styles of rhyming which would
emerge within about five years after Dolemite's stage debut.

The story is a great underdog tale, which is hard to pass up. Moore was a down-on-his-luck, mediocre stand-up comedian performing at strip clubs before he hit on the Dolemite persona. And watching Eddie Murphy enact Moore's conception of Dolemite and gradually bring him to life is a treat. There is something about the character that is such pure performance. He's not telling jokes. He's not telling stories. Almost all he does is just brag on himself using one-sentence rhymes. But he carries it off with such pizzazz and swagger that it's as magnetic as it is hilarious. And while it's a bit of a trope, seeing his motley film crew put the Dolemite movie together is as satisfying and funny as any "can pull this off?" tale you've seen in film.

Perhaps the greatest takeaway for me from this movie is how it serves as a reminder of just how great a comic actor Eddie Murphy is. Like nearly every Gen-X English speaker on the planet, I grew up with the legend of Eddie Murphy's stand-up and comedy film genius through the 1980s. I also watched the steady decline through the 1990s in the quality of his movies, right through to the G- and PG-rated disposable family fare that he's almost exclusively been doing for the last two decades. But Dolemite is My Name says this loud and clear: the man is just as funny and as good an actor as he ever was.

Highly recommend this movie. Get ready for some seriously R-rated, blue humor, but if that's not an issue for you, then you'll dig it.