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Life (1999)
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Reviews Counted:54
Fresh:27
Rotten:27
Average Rating:5.7/10
Consensus: Entertaining if not over-the-top humor from a solid comic duo provides plenty of laughs.
Runtime: 2 hrs
Genre: Comedies
Synopsis: Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence team up for a prison comedy underlined by serious social commentary. Rayford Gibson (Murphy), an opportunistic con man, and Claude Banks (Lawrence), an ambitious... Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence team up for a prison comedy underlined by serious social commentary. Rayford Gibson (Murphy), an opportunistic con man, and Claude Banks (Lawrence), an ambitious bank teller, are complete opposites who cross paths in 1930s Harlem. In order to pay off their debts to a local crime lord, the mismatched pair travel into the Deep South on a moonshine delivery only to be framed for murder by a racist Southern cop. Sentenced to life in a Mississippi state prison, the bickering duo spend the next 60 years trading barbs and planning their escape, at the same time forming an unlikely but touching friendship. [More]
Starring: Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, Obba Babatunde, Ned Beatty
Starring: Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, Obba Babatunde, Ned Beatty, Bernie Mac, Miguel A. Nunez, Clarence Williams, Bokeem Woodbine, Nick Cassavetes, Noah Emmerich, Lee Ermey
Director: Ted Demme
Director: Ted Demme
Screenwriter: Robert Ramsey, Matthew Stone
Producer: Brian Grazer, Eddie Murphy
Composer: Wyclef Jean
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Reviews for Life
Life desperately wants to let Murphy and Lawrence be actors, but it can't imagine them as anything more than rowdy showmen.
What's most effective about Life is the skillful way in which it blends poignancy into its broad tale.
This prison dramedy's muddled, episodic script seems to have gone on a hunger strike for humor!
Ribald, funny and sometimes sweet, and well acted by Murphy, Lawrence and a strong supporting cast.
Life is a frustrating experience, because every time it appears close to making a connection to its characters it falls back on a lame joke to reassure the viewers that they're still watching a comedy.
Life plays more like This Is Your Life for Eddie Murphy, cobbling together elements from his earlier, funnier movies.
The writers and Demme should have smoothed out the timeline and sacrificed a few zingers in order to make a deeper, better movie about hardship and friendship in prison.
Lively, packed with colorful characters and spiked with outbursts of outrageous banter!
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