Dolemite is my Name: A Delightful Comeback in Eddie Murphy’s Name

Eddie Murphy gives one of his best performances in years in this lovingly crafted biography of iconoclast Rudy Ray Moore. Moore was a struggling comedian and performer who after creating his persona Dolemite found some fame by recording and selling his own records and ultimately starring in his own movies that he at first had to rent out theaters to show to an audience until a film studio recognized the opportunity. This is the story the screenwriting duo of Scott Alexander and Larry Karaszewski (Ed Wood) tells and that Craig Brewer (Hustle and Flow) directs.

Murphy actually tones down his own charisma in order to flesh out a mediocre man who had the audacity to dare to be great…and even if he couldn’t be great, he’d sure as hell fail gloriously. The glorious failures of Rudy Ray Moore are the films charm. In some ways the film is similar to The Disaster Artist, but it has always seemed (to me at least) that Tommy Wiseau was the last one in on the joke but Murphy’s Rudy Ray is keenly aware of the joke his life has become and the two-bit hustle he maintains in a struggle to achieve that American dream.

Dolemite is my Name opens with Rudy Ray working in a record store in early nineteen-seventies Los Angeles. We see him pitching the instore DJ Roj played by Snoop Dogg, of the inhouse radio station. He tries to get Roj to play one of his songs to no avail. We soon see Rudy Ray working a night club as an MC for his friend Ben (Craig Robinson), and after introducing the band he approaches the owner (Barry Shabaka Henley) and asks him for some stage time to do his comedy act, only to deal with that rejection. This is the struggle of Rudy Ray.

While at the record store a homeless man who’s become a sort of a fixture there wanders in and loudly rhyming nonsense that also include somebody named Dolemite. Rudy Ray gets the idea to interview the homeless man named Ricco (Ron Cephas Jones) and formulates a routine where he assumes the personae of this Dolemite. Flamboyantly dressed as a pimp while cockily swinging a cane, Rudy Ray walks into that night club and onto the stage to the dismay of the club owner and begins his routine. It is a hit with the crowd and Rudy Ray begins recording comedy albums and selling them himself, until a record company agrees to market it while he goes on tour.

While touring he meets Lady Reed, an adorable Da’Vine Joy Randolph and convinces her to join him on his tour as a comedy team. While enjoying his success, Rudy Ray takes his friends to see The Front Page. While his friends are mystified as to why this movie is getting laughs, and openly questioning it loud enough to be shushed by audience members, Rudy Ray is having an epiphany. He decides that the surest way to reach a wider audience is to make a movie of which he stars in. A funky pimp kung fu gangster movie.

Rudy Ray first tries to attract film executives to his idea but ultimately decides to just make the movie himself and convinces his record label to advance him the money needed to make it. It’s a high risk gambit that could cost Moore his future revenue from his comedy records if the risk doesn’t pay off, but he is convinced this will catapult him into the fame he so desperately wants. Moore approaches playwright Jerry Jones (a subdued Keegan-Micheal Key) to write the screenplay. Because this is Rudy Ray Moore, he and Jones go to a strip club to discuss the script when they see D’Urville Martin (Wesley Snipes) in the club.

D’Urville Martin was an actor probably best known at that time for his role in Rosemary’s Baby. Rudy Ray approaches Martin and offers him a role in the movie he’s making. Martin, played by a very funny Snipes, dismisses Moore and lets him know how offended he is by even asking him to take a role. Moore changes his mind when he offers Martin a chance to direct the film. With Jones and Martin on board Rudy Ray is on his way to making his own movie. The shenanigans that ensue are often hilarious, even hysterical and always fun.

It is nice to see Wesley Snipes remind us that he has a knack for comedy but it is even nicer that Eddie Murphy reminds us that he too has a knack for comedy, but what is so impressive about Murphy’s performance is how he restrains his own undeniable star power in order to better capture the essence of Rudy Ray Moore. As a comedian Rudy Ray was never any Eddie Murphy, but Murphy’s tampered performance in that regard allows for a much more nuanced performance showing not just a cut-up comedian but an actual human being with real life dreams, frustrations and determination. As a director,

Craig Brewer has a penchant for beautiful losers with the potential for greatness. With Dolemite is my Name he crafts a film that not only celebrates this, he lovingly tells Rudy Ray Moore’s journey from obscurity, from stuck in being a legend in his own mind to becoming a genuine legend of the nineteen-seventies blaxpoitation films. It is a fitting comeback for Eddie Murphy, who never left the game but hasn’t been the legend he once was. Hopefully this marks his return to that legend.