Boomerang

Somewhere in the realms of time i remember seeing Boomerang and not being that impressed by it. I decided to give it another rewatch and still come to the same conclusion, this is a poor Eddie Murphy film. The frustrating thing is this had the potential to be a good, funny film. It has an amazing cast including not only Murphy, but Robin Givens, Halle Berry, Grace Jones and Martin Lawrence. The problem with the film is it is directed flatly giving the whole look and feel of a tv sitcom. The script is weak and unfunny and the film is far too long at nearly 2 hours long. The cast do there best with the weak script but cannot salvage the film. Lawrence is completley wasted in a supporting role. Ultimately Boomerang feels like a film where Murphy called the shots rather than the director and at the height of Murphys ego and popularity someone should have reigned him in. Boomerang is watchable but a mean spirited film and perhaps should only be viewed the once.

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.

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.

A few things seems weird about the IMDb reviews of this movie, to bring it down to a 5.4 ratings. 1. It's funny how a lot of reviewers remember walking out of the theaters, when they wrote their reviews 12...15...17 years after the movie was released. Like it was a personal vendetta against Eddie Murphy and the Hudlin brothers. 2. The movie, in 1992, was actually quite popular and didn't get panned by critics. So, it's funny to see so many 1 ratings, and people reviewing it as if it were the worst movie ever made. 3. I've always heard the rumors (and witnessed it myself) that IMDb reviewers don't seem to like popular black movies or TV shows. Seems like trolls, from entities other than those that make black productions, want to discourage potential viewers from seeing something other than their own creations.

My review: A very good rom-com with a great cast of old favorites and legends.

One of Eddie Murphy's best performances in one of his least seen films was the 1992 winner BOOMERANG. This smart and sophisticated romantic comedy stars Eddie as Marcus Graham, a womanizing advertising executive who loves the thrill of the chase where women are concerned, but once he has completed the chase, he is ready to move on. His sexual exploits have made him the center of his circle of friends (Martin Lawrence, a paranoid racist, and David Alan Grier, an insecure milquetoast)who live vicariously through him and admire his style as the ultimate player. Everything changes for Marcus when he acquires a new boss named Jacqueline (Robin Givens), Marcus is enamored of Jacqueline, but is completely thrown by the fact that Jacqueline is a female version of himself, a player who avoids commitment and uses Marcus when it is convenient for her. Throw into the mix another co-worker of Marcus named Angela (Halle Berry) who is nuts about him, but he doesn't know she's alive. Everything works here and it is so refreshing to see a movie with a predominately black cast where the characters are people with brains and real jobs. Murphy exudes mass amounts of sex appeal in one of his best roles and Halle Berry, though allegedly playing a plain Jane, just couldn't come off that way if she tried. There are some wonderful comic bits contributed along the way by Grace Jones, Geoffrey Holder, Tisha Campbell, and the legendary Eartha Kitt, memorable as an aging cosmetics queen with the hots for Marcus. A winning and original take on the Battle of the Sexes that is entertaining from start to finish.