Dolemite Is My Name

Twenty-for-Seven #12 (Day 5)
2019, d. Craig Brewer (Hustle & Flow) - Netflix

The Tarantino effect on my movie watching was rather huge.  My obsession with Pulp Fiction in the mid-90s drove me to seek out all sorts of different genres of music and movies I hadn't previously been exposed to, including blacksploitation.  I watched most of the big name pictures - Shaft, Truck Turner, Cleopatra Jones, Black Belt Jones, Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song and more of the smaller ones - and was explicitly aware of both Rudy Ray Moore and Dolemite by name but I completely mistook what I heard about it as a celebration, rather than satire, of pimp culture.  It's so nice to be re-educated.

Dolemite Is My Name is half biopic on Rudy Ray Moore and half behind-the-scenes on the production of Dolemite.  It's also a very, very strong reminder of what a charismatic performer Eddie Murphy can be, and makes one wish he chose his projects more judiciously to be in higher standard efforts like this.

Rudy Ray Moore had tried it all, with unsuccessful records and comedy albums behind him.  In his mid-40's working at a record store  he desperately wanted to be an entertainer and showman of note, but by the 1970s the type of singing/dancing/comedy performers Moore was emulating had started to vanish.  Comedy clubs has started forming and performers like Redd Foxx and Richard Pryor started working blue, and Moore's outdated stylings were gaining him no traction.  Around this time he caught on to the local legend of "Dolemite", a figure of tall tales the homeless and addicted would tell each other for amusement.  Moore started refining the stories with dirtier, more comedic punchlines and then started inhabiting the character on stage.  After very successfully self-printing and selling records, he joined up with a label to greater success.

But there was still more opportunity he foresaw, especially at the movies.  He self financed (including a series of loans) production of a movie based around the Dolemite character.  It's not something that should have worked, really but his intuition served him well, finding the right crew of people to work with, and the right motivation for making it all happen.

The film serves Moore very well, presenting him as an up-front, honest, and decent man whose desires were to entertain and to make a name for himself doing so.  He shrewdly saw a need in a market and filled the void, multiple times.  The act of doing Dolemite may not have been his preferred way to becoming a star, but he was dedicated to performing, whatever it took.

Murphy is downright excellent in the role, disappearing into a personality that obviously means a lot to him.  There's a real sense of love and affection to the portrayal of Moore, almost as if Murphy is trying to say "this is how I'd like to be remembered some day".

The cast is excellent, with Wesley Snipes delivering an unflattering but hilarious performance as coked out, vainglorious actor/director D'Urville Martin (Martin in real life would have been 35 at the time of shooting Dolemite, and died at age 45 in 1984... Snipes is now 57).  Da'vine Joy Randolph is incredible as Lady Reed, who has a very close friendship with Moore, one that the film treasures without ever insinuating is leading towards a romantic one.  It's rather beautiful aspect of the film. Other supporting cast are rounded out by comedy stalwarts Keegan Michael Key, Craig Robinson, Titus Burgess, Mike Epps with some guest shots from Chris Rock, Bob Odenkirk, Snoop Dogg, and Ron Cephas Jones.

Dolemite Is My Name is a fun time and clearly made with an affinity towards the source and what it meant in its time.  It certainly made me curious about this overlooked blacksploitation parody on my part.  Black Dynamite is one of my favourite all-time movies and Dolemite seems to have been a clear influence on it.