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Dolemite Is My Name has repaired the comic’s sagging reputation. Now he’s returning to standup and Beverly Hills Cop. Is the old Eddie really back?
“There is no return, you never leave,” Eddie Murphy told an interviewer earlier this year, when the discussion turned to his perceived comeback. Murphy had never gone anywhere, he said. True, he is still a constant presence in terms of his old movies playing, and his influence runs through subsequent generations of black comedians, but there has been a strong sense recently that the old Murphy is back: the Murphy with the smart tongue and the glint in the eye, and the appetite for bawdy, subversive grown-up comedy rather than children’s entertainment. That Eddie Murphy.
The main fuel for all this talk is Dolemite Is My Name, Netflix’s likable recreation of self-made 1970s star Rudy Ray Moore. It is a perfect role for Murphy: Moore was a failing wannabe until he created a foul-mouthed pimp persona, whose outrageous verse led to success in standup then in hilariously amateurish movies. People are now talking about Murphy in terms of Oscar nominations – when they’re not wondering where the hell he’s been. Continue reading...