**/**** Image B Sound B+
directed by Robert Townsend
by Travis Mackenzie Hoover Late one night when I was 15, I sat in my parents' basement and enjoyed every vulgar minute of Eddie Murphy Raw on Pay-TV. At the time, I was only marginally more sexually aware than a garden hose–all I knew was that Eddie was saying naughty things and that it was a priori true that naughty things were funny. Alas, some youthful pleasures don't bear revisiting. It's now sixteen years later and I must confess that my second viewing of the film didn't go so well: in the cold light of maturity, it seems like the record of a brilliant performer spouting the worst sort of misogynist drivel and calling it the truth. And while the lightning-fast delivery and easy charm of the man soften the blow somewhat, it's still a depressing waste of his talent that seals Murphy's pact with the devil, which would eventually cast him into family-comedy hell.
The film catches Murphy at the zenith of his career. In addition to a montage of adoring fans rhyming off their favourite movie titles (one poor soul even cops to liking Best Defense), the film opens with a short, not-especially-funny skit recalling an 8-year-old Eddie telling a bathroom joke at a family gathering. The message is clear: Murphy had become myth, one of the biggest box-office draws in the world, with the faith of the audience in his pocket–and 1987 was the time to capitalize on it. Thus he unleashes a stand-up routine that links back to his roots (and the early VHS-era concert tape, Delirious). The question is: what will be his material?
The answer, unfortunately, comes back: chicks can't be trusted. After a helping of the homophobia for which he would eventually have to apologize, and a fairly funny recounting of an irate phone call from Bill Cosby, Murphy launches into the thesis of the evening. Detailing the perfidious nature of the so-called fairer sex, he begins by decrying the divorce laws that saw Johnny Carson separated from half his fortune and proceeds to characterize all women as treacherous bitches who would jump at the chance to gold-dig their way into his fortune. He's threatened by Janet Jackson's cry of "What have you done for me lately" and casts all women as selfish, even as he makes allowances for the "natural" straying nature of the male of the species. Mostly, he bemoans that women won't cater to his whims and then leave him alone. Murphy is so obsessed with the subject, in fact, that he kills almost an hour in order to vent his spleen.
Even with the mitigating factor of Murphy's spry, smirking delivery, the set can't really survive this, and the arrogance that we enjoy in his early film roles is so undisciplined that it becomes hard to take. The less offensive follow-ups involving Mom's cooking and Dad's obsession with eating toys seem mealy-mouthed and feeble after the sustained diatribe, as if he had shot his wad and was just killing time to pad 90 minutes. The crucial factor that distinguishes Murphy from Richard Pryor, the comic to whom he seemed the heir apparent, is that Pryor made himself vulnerable to the audience, revealing his foibles as well as his fears, while Murphy is bulletproof and without sin. The results, however well executed, reveal a man so completely self-involved that he can think only of his own pleasure–and that's not a pleasure in and of itself.
THE DVD
Paramount's DVD release of Eddie Murphy Raw is barely adequate. The 1.85:1, 16×9-enhanced image is bedevilled by grain problems in dark areas, a big problem for a film that takes place in front of shadowy curtains. Edge-enhancement is also an issue, though, curiously, only in the opening sequences. The Dolby 2.0 surround sound is a little better, not especially potent but not especially deficient, either, with a slight softness ultimately doing little to detract. No extras.
90 minutes; R; 1.85:1 (16×9-enhanced); English Dolby Surround; CC; English subtitles; DVD-9; Region One; Paramount
