Boomerang

The Eddie Murphy romantic/sex comedy "Boomerang" is, quite simply, a thorough and total joy. Murphy portrays longtime womanizer Marcus Graham with his usual charm and poise. Halle Berry is absolutely appealing and absolutely warm as the girl who prompts Marcus to clean up his horny act. Martin Lawrence and David Alan Grier provide ingratiating and stylish buddy-support. Lela Rochon and Eartha Kitt are, respectively, magnificently kittenish and magnificently cougar-ish as women with whom Marcus scores. Yet the film's greatest asset, its leading lure is Robin Givens's portrayal of Marcus's boss/female counterpart Jacqueline Broyer. She is by turns sexy and stylish, sultry and commanding, seductive and polished. We immediately see why Marcus falls under her spell and, when she dumps him, not only do we not turn against her, we admire her independent spirit and her no-bullshit attitude. Really and truly, by and of itself "Boomerang" is a sexy, charming, absolutely joyous romantic/sex farce; with Robin Givens on board, however, it achieves genuine cinematic greatness.

After a terrible 1991 loanout to Hollywood Pictures for the weak comedy "The Distinguished Gentleman", Eddie Murphy returned to Paramount the following year and gave one of his all time best and funniest performances in this romantic comedy with a twist. Murphy portrays Marcus Graham, a New York advertising executive who is known by many people throughout New York for being a notorious player, a man who will date a woman, get her into bed by the end of the first date, judge her by the lovemaking and then dump her. Marcus is quite happy with having this rather low lifestyle and way of treating women. He goes around proudly reporting the previous night's results each morning to his friends (David Alan Grier, Martin Lawrence). One day, an attractive young woman (Robin Givens) becomes the advertising company's new boss. Marcus naturally feels that she will be his next target for romantic using and gets more than he ever bargained for when she winds up being the first woman ever who can see through his tricks and try to get back at him for it (hence the title). Murphy is absolutely hilarious in his role as a player who gradually learns to get lessons in treating women right and Halle Berry has a early leading film part as another work colleague who eventually comes between the Murphy/Givens love affair. Several other popular character actors and actresses make appearances here too.

Marcus is a player who woos and beds women with great ease – but never settles down with any. When a company merger sees him working for the glamorous Jacqueline, he finds himself being played but still falling for her. However a relationship with the more stable Angela beckons if he can change his ways – but will Jackie allow him to leave her?

Part of the Eddie Murphy come back after the years of Harlem Nights, Golden Child, Another 48 hours, BHC 2 and other weak films. This and the Distinguished Gentleman saw him try to come back with a fresh approach. Boomerang is a good film – it uses Murphy's playa persona and turns it on it's head to good effect. True some of it is plain silly and it is quite predictable but it is pretty enjoyable and quite sexy too!

Murphy is good simply because he is the butt of many of the jokes via his playa image – plus it's good to see him be outdone after so many big-headed films. Givens is very good as the man-eating boss but I found Berry to be too sweet to be believed – but though she was the better looking. Lawrence and Rock are well used in small roles but Kitt and Grace are pointless and stupid cameos. Witherspoon is very funny and I personally love to see Lela Rochon in anything (and those aren't her feet).

Overall it may not win any awards or being shockingly innovative but it's fun, sexy and has a good bagfull of laughs in there.

I can't quite understand how people left anything less than a 6 for a review for this movie. The only reason I say six is cause they do make jokes that are offensive to other cultures and genders so to speak. But other than that, it was quite funny. There definitely were some parts of the movie that people may not have appreciated. Some viewers really don't understand the whole 1988-1992 genre that seem to raise between decades and the start of one.

That would definitely explain all the references to Africa that the students were doing. Back then Black People including hip hop was all about wearing African Medalians and so on. This movie was touching on that just a bit. I have to agree with one viewer. I was surprised when I found it it was an all black cast. I mean I remember the movie when it came out but it was never brought up much in that time its all black cast. Probably cause they thought that was something that was going to be normal.

I watched this with my girlfriend who never heard or seen this movie and she loved it. The real funny part was Grace Jones. She was a little before my time in the early 80s so by 90s i saw a small glimpse of her. Definitely a raunchy movie but it was hilarious. Plus Im a sap for love stories. Plus I love how this made black women look. Powerful. Most movies to this day don't even do that.

Id like to have a word with those people who gave it a 5 and really a word with those who gave it a 1. There is nothing bad about this movie. Definitely comedy. Plus its just a great sound track. Now if we as black people could get back to making this type of movies that would be nice. This movie is like a mix of working girl mixed with definitely maybe.

There are a lot of top black actors in this movie. Halle Berry, Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, even Chris Rock. It was cool to see them all working together and I had a good laugh throughout the movie. A lot of famous lines come from this movie and I had no idea. Good old school Eddie flick.