starring Eddie Murphy, Keegan-Michael Key, Mike Epps, Wesley Snipes
directed by Craig Brewer
116 minutes
Watched on Netflix
This is the story of comedian and entertainer Rudy Ray Moore's rise to fame and the making of his first movie, Dolemite. Moore was working in a record store at the time the movie opens, in the early 1970s. He was doing a little bit of standup comedy but didn't gain a following until he started to take material from guys living on the street. He reworked the stories he heard and palmed them off as his own.
Moore recorded his own album with help from some friends. He eventually got the attention of a record company and soon had several albums. He got the idea to make a movie but had trouble raising money. Eventually he made a deal with the record company and they advanced him most of the money he needed.
The money helped but Moore faced many more challenges along the way to getting his movie made and distributed.
Thoughts
I saw Dolemite (1975) for the first and only time a few years ago. This movie doesn't pull any punches. Dolemite is a fun movie but it is also kind of ridiculous.
There are a lot of familiar faces in this movie. Keegan-Michael Key plays Jerry, the writer of Dolemite. Titus Burgess plays Toney, one of Moore's assistants. I know Burgess from the Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. Wesley Snipes plays D'Urville Martin who directed and played the bad guy in Dolemite.
I thought this was a lot of fun to watch. I like it more than Dolemite (1975). I had my doubts going in about how they would make it work but I think they did a decent job with it. I'm not sure that this movie will entertain everyone as much as it entertained me.
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