Life
I don’t know that Life is a completely pro-single movie. But I did recommend it to my good friend Kevin, who enjoys reading about friendship. So, I include it in my growing list of reviews.
I saw it on VHS back in 1999, when I rented it from Hollywood Video (I really do miss the communal atmosphere of video stores, when we bonded over what movies we wanted to see; working at their rival, Blockbuster, was actually a fond memory).
Sentimentality aside, when I first picked up Life and saw Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence’s mugs on the box, I thought it would be a foul-mouthed, scatological comedy. It does earn its R rating, but there’s a lot of nostalgia, and while its pro-friendship message isn’t quite as powerful as that of The Shawshank Redemption, it is substantial.
Murphy and Lawrence play hustler Ray and soon-to-be bank teller Claude, respectively. Their paths cross in a Harlem nightclub in 1932 when Ray pickpockets Claude in a bathroom, only to find his wallet is empty. It turns out Claude owed money to a loan shark, who’d shaken him down in said bathroom previously. Claude can’t pay his restaurant Bill and Ray’s pissed off Spanky, the owner, for unknown reasons, so they end up on a dock where Spanky attempts to drown Claude. Ray talks Spanky into letting him and Claude pick up moonshine from Mississippi and bring it back to New York.
Through a series of circumstances, Ray and Claude are framed by a racist sheriff for murder and given a life sentence on a Mississippi prison farm. The movie highlights their next sixty-five years together. They are an odd couple from the beginning. Claude is fastidious and hot-tempered, especially when, on the way to pick up the hooch, they enter a diner that serves “white only” pie. Ray is street-smart and diplomatic and attempts to bargain with the diner owner (“How much will it cost to turn this white only pie into n_______ pie?”).
Claude is coupled at the beginning, but he may just be an unaware single-at-heart. When his girlfriend, Daisy, complains about not getting an engagement ring (“Respectable folks get jobs, get married, start having babies”), he says, “There’s no need to rush into things.” The movie paints him as a typical commitment-phobe, but I wonder. He is self-centered as the movie begins. He attempts to appeal his life sentence, but he shuts Ray out. Daisy is disappointed to learn this and ends up marrying Claude’s lawyer cousin.
This isn’t a film where Ray or Claude meet “the one.” There are prostitutes that come in and out on occasion, and the warden helps prisoners skirt around the rule of “conjugal visits for married prisoners only” by taking bribes for “temporary marriage licenses.” But the movie chronicles a seven-decade friendship between Claude and Ray (even though they don’t speak to each other for twenty-eight of those years).
There’s a subtle character arc that goes on as well. Claude gradually learns how to be a better friend; during his and Ray’s first failed escape attempt, Ray gets caught in a low barbed wire fence, while Claude’s about to run ahead. Claude could leave Ray behind, but he goes back to help him; in the process, they’re apprehended by the guards (I do wonder whether a week in “the hole” is sufficient punishment for an escape attempt; the tone here is quite light for a prison film).
SPOILER ALERT: Ray and Claude eventually do escape. By this time, they’re in their nineties, and the last shot shows them enjoying a baseball game at Yankee Stadium, still bickering in that way that only people who’ve been friends for decades can do. And the end notes on the screen indicate they live together in Harlem. It’s nice.
I saw it on VHS back in 1999, when I rented it from Hollywood Video (I really do miss the communal atmosphere of video stores, when we bonded over what movies we wanted to see; working at their rival, Blockbuster, was actually a fond memory).
Sentimentality aside, when I first picked up Life and saw Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence’s mugs on the box, I thought it would be a foul-mouthed, scatological comedy. It does earn its R rating, but there’s a lot of nostalgia, and while its pro-friendship message isn’t quite as powerful as that of The Shawshank Redemption, it is substantial.
Murphy and Lawrence play hustler Ray and soon-to-be bank teller Claude, respectively. Their paths cross in a Harlem nightclub in 1932 when Ray pickpockets Claude in a bathroom, only to find his wallet is empty. It turns out Claude owed money to a loan shark, who’d shaken him down in said bathroom previously. Claude can’t pay his restaurant Bill and Ray’s pissed off Spanky, the owner, for unknown reasons, so they end up on a dock where Spanky attempts to drown Claude. Ray talks Spanky into letting him and Claude pick up moonshine from Mississippi and bring it back to New York.
Through a series of circumstances, Ray and Claude are framed by a racist sheriff for murder and given a life sentence on a Mississippi prison farm. The movie highlights their next sixty-five years together. They are an odd couple from the beginning. Claude is fastidious and hot-tempered, especially when, on the way to pick up the hooch, they enter a diner that serves “white only” pie. Ray is street-smart and diplomatic and attempts to bargain with the diner owner (“How much will it cost to turn this white only pie into n_______ pie?”).
Claude is coupled at the beginning, but he may just be an unaware single-at-heart. When his girlfriend, Daisy, complains about not getting an engagement ring (“Respectable folks get jobs, get married, start having babies”), he says, “There’s no need to rush into things.” The movie paints him as a typical commitment-phobe, but I wonder. He is self-centered as the movie begins. He attempts to appeal his life sentence, but he shuts Ray out. Daisy is disappointed to learn this and ends up marrying Claude’s lawyer cousin.
This isn’t a film where Ray or Claude meet “the one.” There are prostitutes that come in and out on occasion, and the warden helps prisoners skirt around the rule of “conjugal visits for married prisoners only” by taking bribes for “temporary marriage licenses.” But the movie chronicles a seven-decade friendship between Claude and Ray (even though they don’t speak to each other for twenty-eight of those years).
There’s a subtle character arc that goes on as well. Claude gradually learns how to be a better friend; during his and Ray’s first failed escape attempt, Ray gets caught in a low barbed wire fence, while Claude’s about to run ahead. Claude could leave Ray behind, but he goes back to help him; in the process, they’re apprehended by the guards (I do wonder whether a week in “the hole” is sufficient punishment for an escape attempt; the tone here is quite light for a prison film).
SPOILER ALERT: Ray and Claude eventually do escape. By this time, they’re in their nineties, and the last shot shows them enjoying a baseball game at Yankee Stadium, still bickering in that way that only people who’ve been friends for decades can do. And the end notes on the screen indicate they live together in Harlem. It’s nice.
