"Martin Lawrence Live: Runteldat," the actor-comic's latest performance film, is a two-for-one job. The first part contains a spectacularly unfunny stand-up routine consisting of weak, off-putting and belabored jokes. The other is a rationalization for all his recent legal and personal misfortunes.
The Maryland native delivers his jokes and excuses to thousands of adoring fans at Constitution Hall in Washington. Thanks to a hit TV series and several popular films, Lawrence has a definite following of forgive-and-forget fans, so the laugh track is solid. This concert film should also score with fans nationwide, but it is unlikely to win many converts for Lawrence.
The best comics, whether their material is off-color or not, deliver observations and insights into the human condition with wit and verbal dexterity. Neither weapon is in Lawrence's comic arsenal. His crude routines focus on safe sex, getting old (he's all of 36), disciplining children ("Whup you child's ass!"), sex after pregnancy, prenuptial agreements (he's for them) and overweight women (he's against them).
Lawrence has little to say on any of these topics. Worse, he is one of the least articulate comics in the history of stand-up. If you eliminate the words "fuck," "shit" and all their variations, this movie would barely qualify as a talkie.
Of course, humor is a matter of taste. Fans may love his comic riffs. Things only become pathetic when Lawrence decides to "tell my own story." The three now-infamous incidents he explains are his deranged behavior with a gun in the middle of an L.A. street -- "I was higher than a motherfucker!" -- a nightclub fight and a bizarre episode where he nearly died of heat stroke and dehydration while jogging in the noon sun.
His defense of this misbehavior: "No one is immune to the trials and tribulations of life." No apologies. No declaration that he has cleaned up his act. Just a defiant "We're all human". Everyone does these kind of things, he insists. Really?
This guy could have taught Tricky Dick Nixon a few tricks. He invokes God whenever he thinks that will go down well. He patronizes his audience by insisting that through all his self-imposed trials, "I felt your love". He even invokes Sept. 11 in response to his critics in the media without ever explaining what one has to do with the other.
The film itself is very cut and dried. An opening sequence contains clips from old TV shows and films and shots of Lawrence revving up backstage for his show. Once it begins, director David Raynr keeps the cameras trained on his sweating comic, seldom cutting away for obligatory shots of the crowd screaming with laughter. Daryn Okada's cinematography is refreshingly no-frills.
MARTIN LAWRENCE LIVE: RUNTELDAT
Paramount Pictures
MTV Films and Runteldat
Credits: Director: David Raynr; Writer: Martin Lawrence; Producers: Michael Hubbard, Beth Hubbard, David Gale, Loretha Jones; Executive producers: Martin Lawrence, Robert Lawrence, Van Toffler; Director of photography: Daryn Okada; Production designer: Richard Hoover; Co-producers: Walter Latham, Michael Cole, Momita Sengupta; Editor: Nicholas Eliopoulos. Cast: Martin Lawrence.
MPAA rating R, running time 103 minutes.
The Maryland native delivers his jokes and excuses to thousands of adoring fans at Constitution Hall in Washington. Thanks to a hit TV series and several popular films, Lawrence has a definite following of forgive-and-forget fans, so the laugh track is solid. This concert film should also score with fans nationwide, but it is unlikely to win many converts for Lawrence.
The best comics, whether their material is off-color or not, deliver observations and insights into the human condition with wit and verbal dexterity. Neither weapon is in Lawrence's comic arsenal. His crude routines focus on safe sex, getting old (he's all of 36), disciplining children ("Whup you child's ass!"), sex after pregnancy, prenuptial agreements (he's for them) and overweight women (he's against them).
Lawrence has little to say on any of these topics. Worse, he is one of the least articulate comics in the history of stand-up. If you eliminate the words "fuck," "shit" and all their variations, this movie would barely qualify as a talkie.
Of course, humor is a matter of taste. Fans may love his comic riffs. Things only become pathetic when Lawrence decides to "tell my own story." The three now-infamous incidents he explains are his deranged behavior with a gun in the middle of an L.A. street -- "I was higher than a motherfucker!" -- a nightclub fight and a bizarre episode where he nearly died of heat stroke and dehydration while jogging in the noon sun.
His defense of this misbehavior: "No one is immune to the trials and tribulations of life." No apologies. No declaration that he has cleaned up his act. Just a defiant "We're all human". Everyone does these kind of things, he insists. Really?
This guy could have taught Tricky Dick Nixon a few tricks. He invokes God whenever he thinks that will go down well. He patronizes his audience by insisting that through all his self-imposed trials, "I felt your love". He even invokes Sept. 11 in response to his critics in the media without ever explaining what one has to do with the other.
The film itself is very cut and dried. An opening sequence contains clips from old TV shows and films and shots of Lawrence revving up backstage for his show. Once it begins, director David Raynr keeps the cameras trained on his sweating comic, seldom cutting away for obligatory shots of the crowd screaming with laughter. Daryn Okada's cinematography is refreshingly no-frills.
MARTIN LAWRENCE LIVE: RUNTELDAT
Paramount Pictures
MTV Films and Runteldat
Credits: Director: David Raynr; Writer: Martin Lawrence; Producers: Michael Hubbard, Beth Hubbard, David Gale, Loretha Jones; Executive producers: Martin Lawrence, Robert Lawrence, Van Toffler; Director of photography: Daryn Okada; Production designer: Richard Hoover; Co-producers: Walter Latham, Michael Cole, Momita Sengupta; Editor: Nicholas Eliopoulos. Cast: Martin Lawrence.
MPAA rating R, running time 103 minutes.
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