Life is a 1999 drama-comedy film starring Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence and Obba Babatundé. The film was directed by Ted Demme. Others in the cast include Bernie Mac, Anthony Anderson, Miguel A. Núñez Jr. and Bokeem Woodbine.
The film's format is a story being told by an elderly inmate (Obba Babatundé) about two of his friends' life sentence in prison.
The film was released in April 1999 and went on to gross over sixty million dollars at the box office. K-Ci & JoJo sang the theme to the movie, which was titled "Life", but it was the song "Fortunate" by Maxwell that garnered the most attention from the soundtrack as it received several awards and nominations.
The film was shot at various locations in California. The locations include Locke, CA, Los Angeles, CA, Downey, CA, and Sacramento, CA. Parts of the film were actually shot at a Rockwell Defense Plant in California.
Synopsis
The film begins with an elderly disabled inmate named Willie Long (Obba Babatundé) at the burial of his two friends who have just recently died in a fire in the prison's infirmary. He begins to tell two young men (Heavy D and Bonz Malone) who work at the prison their story:
Ray Gibson (Murphy) and Claude Banks (Lawrence) are two New Yorkers in 1932 from different worlds: Ray is a small-time hustler and Claude has just been accepted for a job as a bank teller, trying to make something of himself. They are both at a club called Spanky's when Ray picks Claude as his mark to pick-pocket. Later they both end up in the bad graces of the club's owner Spanky (Rick James). Ray is in trouble for running numbers on Spanky's territory. Claude is in trouble because he does not have any money to pay for the dinner he just ate at Spanky's club since he was jacked by two men he owes money. Ray arranges to have himself and Claude do some boot-legging in order to pay off both of their debts to Spanky.
They head down south from New York in order to buy a carload of Mississippi 'hooch' (alcohol). Unfortunately, before they can get back to New York, a man named Winston Hancock (Clarence Williams III), who swindles Ray in a card game, is murdered outside of a juke joint by the town's white sheriff, Warren Pike (Ned Vaughn). As Ray and Claude are walking outside talking about what happened in the club, Hancock is thrown onto Claude by a pulley of some sort. Some rednecks come up on them and realize Hancock is dead. They take Ray and Claude to the jail at gunpoint. A short time later, they go to trial, are convicted, and sentenced to life. True to the time period and the south, Ray and Claude are sent to an infamous prison camp called 'Camp 8' (now Mississippi State Penitentiary) for murder to perform hard labor. They spend the next 65 years trying to escape from prison, while making new friends: Biscuit (Miguel A. Núñez Jr.), Jangle Leg (Bernie Mac), Radio (Guy Torry), Goldmouth (Michael Taliferro), Cookie (Anthony Anderson) and Pokerface (Barry Shabaka Henley), dodging the guards Sergeant Dillard (Nick Cassavetes) and Hoppin' Bob (Brent Jennings) as well as having their own friendship grow. Each inmate has their own different personality. Though Sgt. Dillard and Hoppin' Bob are strict on them, they both have friendly "soft spots" for all of their inmates. Ray gets into a jam while defending Claude over a piece of cornbread that Goldmouth demands but Claude is being polite (unaware that he is taking advantage of him). Goldmouth gets angry when Ray keeps running his mouth and says that he'll take his instead of Claude's. Ray threatens that if he takes his cornbread it will be "consequences and repercussions" (which leads to a fight and Goldmouth wins). After the fight, Ray and Goldmouth become friends.
Sometime later, one night, Ray explains his dream of having his own nightclub called "The Boom Boom Room". The point of the club is just to have it in your imagination and it doesn't have to be real. A dream sequence features Biscuit imagining himself as a female singer, Jangle Leg and Radio are in the band, Cookie is a hungry restaurant patron, Pokerface is a lucky gambler, Goldmouth is the guard at the door and Claude is a mistreated waiter. The sequence ends with Hoppin' Bob as a cop who demands everyone to leave the club (but it was actually Hoppin' Bob interrupting by telling the inmates to go to bed).
Ray and Claude make several attempts to escape the prison. Early in their incarceration, they simply try running away in the middle of the night, getting as far as Tallahatchie before being tracked down and sentenced to a week in the hole. Around 1944, during World War II, they meet a fellow mute inmate named 'Can't-Get-Right' (Bokeem Woodbine) who happens to be an extremely proficient baseball player. He catches the eye of a Negro League scout who indicates he can get him out of prison to play baseball. Ray and Claude try to get the scout to put a word in for them as well (as they relate to 'Can't-Get-Right' in that they can coax him best to play), but this eventually falls through and only 'Can't-Get-Right' is released. The gay inmate Biscuit is killed around this time when he deliberately runs into a gun line and is shot a day before his release. His lover, Jangle Leg, never fully recovers from this. After 'Can't-Get-Right' is released to play baseball in Pittsburgh, Ray makes another escape plan but Claude wants no part of it. Claude starts resigning himself to the fact that they'll never get out ("They threw us in this shithole for LIFE, Ray...we're gonna die here!). This leads to an argument, which in turn leads to Ray and Claude ending their friendship. With them not talking, Camp 8 gets "a little harder and colder", and as the years passed, all of the inmates who were friends of Ray, Claude, and Willie died.
Many years later after a number of events occurring including the John F. Kennedy assassination, the Martin Luther King, Jr. assassination, the Malcolm X assassination, the The African-American Civil Rights Movement, the Apollo 11 moon landings, and Muhammad Ali's last win. In 1972, Ray, Claude and Willie are now older. Willie is too old and weak to walk and he is now in a wheelchair. Hoppin' Bob died years ago and Sgt. Dillard still runs the camp, still annoying Ray and Claude. One day, Ray and Claude are sent over to live at the Superintendent Dexter Wilkins' (Ned Beatty) mansion to work for him. Upon their departure, Sgt. Dillard says "I, for one, won't miss you" (although his emotional disposition would indicate otherwise.) Claude drives Superintendent Wilkins to pick up the new superintendent (R. Lee Ermey) who happens to be Sheriff Pike, the man who framed them 40 years earlier. In the midst of a heated argument over a watch that Pike stole from Ray, Pike gets shot and killed by Wilkins, who realizes they really were innocent. He tells Ray and Claude he intends to write pardon papers for the two of them, but dies of a heart attack before he's able to do so.
In 1997, the present day, Ray and Claude are now elderly, and living in the (now-integrated) prison's infirmary with Willie. They realize by now that the only way they'll escape the prison is when they die. However, the infirmary catches fire, and everyone is able to get out except Claude. Willie tells Ray he's still inside, Ray goes back in to find him, when the entrance caves in behind him, presumably killing him.
In present day, Willie concludes the tale and the two workers are saddened by the story, but he reveals that the event was planned by Ray and Claude. The workers are still confused. but Willie only rolls off (in his wheelchair) laughing and smoking a cigarette. The two bodies were taken from the morgue, and Ray and Claude had escaped the fire and prison by hiding on the departing fire trucks. The film ends with Ray and Claude (now living together in Harlem) at a New York Yankees baseball game. Doing what they always do: argue.
Cast
Awards and nominations
- Academy Award
- NAACP Image Award
- nominated for Outstanding Motion Picture (2000)
- BMI Film & TV Awards
- won for Most Performed Song from a Film (2000)
- Blockbuster Entertainment Awards
- nominated with Eddie Murphy for Favorite Comedy Team (2000) for the movie
- nominated for Favorite Song from a Movie (Fortunate)
Trivia
- In the scene where Ray is getting beaten in a fight with Goldmouth, Rayford says to Goldmouth: "I know a bitch named Della who hits harder than you." This is a reference to Harlem Nights (1989), in which Murphy's character is beat up in a fight with a madame played by Della Reese.[citation needed]
- Spanky's (Rick James) limp was not acting. The scene was shot after Rick James underwent hip replacement surgery.
- Willie Long (Obba Babtundé) is the only surviving inmate that was a friend of Ray and Claude. He is also the narrator of the film.
- In the scene where Ray and Claude are standing on a box of bottles, Claude mentions that one of his toes has slipped into one of them. This actually happened during the take, but Martin Lawrence kept going, despite Eddie Murphy's laughing, which is genuine.
- This isn't the first time Eddie Murphy and Rick James have collaborated together. Rick James sang the chorus for Eddie's Murphy "Party All The Time".
Soundtrack listing
Life: Music Inspired by the Motion Picture
The soundtrack album was released on March 16, 1999.
- "25 to Life" - Xzibit, Ja Rule, Juvenile, Nature, Reptile aka Rep Tilly-on
- "It's Like Everyday" - DJ Quik, Mausberg and R. Kelly
- "Stimulate Me" - Destiny's Child featuring Mocha
- "Fortunate" - Maxwell *
- "Lovin' You" - Sparkle
- "Every Which Way" - Talent featuring Vegas Cats
- "It's Gonna Rain" - Kelly Price
- "Discovery" - Brian McKnight
- "Follow the Wind" - Trisha Yearwood
- "Why Should I Believe You?" - Mýa
- "What Would You Do?" - City High *
- "What Goes Around" - Khadegia featuring Marie Antoinette
- "Speechless" - Isley Brothers
- "Life" - K-Ci & JoJo *
- "New Day" - Wyclef Jean
(*) indicates songs were released as singles
External links
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