Flick is a comedy/biography of 70s blaxploitation film legend and “Godfather of Rap” Rudy Ray Moore (Eddie Murphy). It shows his beginnings as a frustrated singer/comedian working in a record store. Takes us to his creation of the Dolemite character, which starts out as a foul mouthed stand-up comedy act. After gaining some popularity and momentum, Rudy assembles a motley cast and crew, to bring Dolemite to the big screen. The rest is cult classic cinema history.
Flick is directed by Craig Brewer, from a script by Larry Karaszewski and Scott Alexander and is a very entertaining movie. The filmmakers know to have a fun time with Moore’s underdog story without making fun of it. They mix just the right amount of humor and drama as Ray “borrows” material from some of the local street folk in the neighborhood and turns it, first, into raunchy comedy gold, and later into exploitation film history. The Netflix Original is made all the more enjoyable by a great 70s flavor and a wonderful performance by a legend himself, Eddie Murphy, playing Moore. We get an oddball selection of characters in support of Moore and the cast portraying them also shine, with Craig Robinson and Mike Epps as Rudy’s friends Ben and Jimmy, Da’Vine Joy Randolph as Lady Reed, Keegan-Michael Key as Dolemite film writer Jerry Jones and a delightful Wesley Snipes as the film’s director/co-star D’Urville Martin. It’s a really fun look at an exploitation legend and his rise to cult stardom, as well as, a triumphant return form by Eddie Murphy.
PERSONAL NOTE: I had the pleasure of meeting Rudy Ray Moore at the Chiller Theater convention here in New Jersey in the 90s. Despite his foul-mouthed, tough guy persona, he was a vey sweet, kind and humble man and I feel fortunate for having met this cult icon. -MZNJ
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Messy story has a Predator (Brian A. Prince) crash landing on Earth right in the middle of a covert operation by military sniper Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook). His men are killed, The Predator is captured and eventually McKenna is taken into custody by a black ops unit, only after sending his autistic son Rory (Jacob Tremblay) some of the Predator tech as security. Biologist Dr. Casey Bracket (Olivia Munn) is brought in to examine the creature and discovers the species is using various collected DNA, including human, to improve themselves. What they don’t know is that their captive is a traitor and a massive 11 foot tall tracker has been sent to earth to eliminate it. When The Predator escapes, McKenna, a band of psychotic army inmates and Casey, must team up to evade slimy government operative Traeger (Sterling K. Brown) and get to Rory before The Predator…or the monster that hunts it…finds his son and ex-wife (Yvonne Strahovski) first…still with me?
Flick is directed by Shane Black (Iron Man 3) from a script he co-wrote with Fred Dekker (Night of the Creeps, Monster Squad) and it is a bit of a mess…though a fun one at times. One basic problem is that the film jumps around a lot with no transitional scenes to give us the illusion that characters traveled from one place to another or learned something that they suddenly know at a later point. While Rory is a savant with the alien technology, other characters including his dad and Munn’s Casey, suddenly know their way around the Predator technology when necessity serves. Let’s just say Black uses a lot of conveniences to move his story along. He also doesn’t seem to take his own story very seriously, as there is an overabundance of humor and it seems to overshadow the more serious moments, keeping the movie from building some real intensity. On a more positive side, Black doesn’t shy away from the gore and there are some very enjoyable action scenes. There is also some fun character banter and it is entertaining to see Predators stalking the suburbs on Halloween night…though they could have made better use of that aspect, too. Still, the film starts to feel like it’s being made up as it goes along once the mega-Predator arrives. The second half especially feels like they are not following a story, but going from one scene to another. The flick also starts out fairly seriously and then seems to get sillier and sillier as it progresses, till it ends in a goofy climactic confrontation of clichés and SPFX. It just doesn’t seem like Black trusted his own material enough to play it straight and tough like the first classic. Even the AVP films took themselves serious enough to get us to buy into them, even if they ultimately disappointed.
The film has an eclectic cast which works even if the material is weak. Boyd Holbrook makes a fine enough hero, though it seemed like he needed a bit stronger screen presence. Olivia Munn proves, after impressing as Psylocke in X-Men: Apocalypse, that she makes a solid action hero and when not left out of that action babysitting Rory, she can kick ass with the boys. Sterling K. Brown is OK as the government bad-guy. It’s a cliché role, but he works hard to make him a good bad guy despite being two dimension-ally written. Tremblay gives another good performance as the bullied and autistic Rory who has a gift for understanding the alien language and technology. As McKenna’s back-up, Trevante Rhodes is good as the soulful Nebraska, Keegan-Michael Key is fun as the joker of the group Coyle, Thomas Jane is solid as a soldier suffering from PTSD and touretts, Alfie Allen (Game of Thrones, John Wick) is good as the Irishman Lynch and Augusto Aguilera is amusing as the weird but likable Nettles. Rounding out is Yvonne Strahovski as Rory’s tough and protective mom and Jake Busey in an amusing role as the son of Predator 2‘s Peter Keyes, who was played by his father Gary Busey.
Overall, this was a bit of a disappointment yet, not without it’s entertaining moments. There was some cool action, some solid FX and the cast of eccentric characters worked well together. Unfortunately the script is weak and the director favored goofy humor and allowed the film to jump from place to place, where it should have taken itself a bit more seriously and a smoother narrative would have made things flow a lot better. The second half seems to be made up as it went along and despite a cool new Predator, the film was more silly than scary. Your move.
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