I am a man who has never tied his own shoes before!

Coming to America

(1988)

I hadn't seen this since the '80s. It's better than I remembered, although with feet more firmly in "romance" than "comedy" the fish-out-of-water jokes play fairly gently. The best scenes on the comedy front are the barbershop riffs performed by Murphy and Murphy; Murphy's Jewish OAP is particularly funny (I seem to recall he got some stick for stereotyping at the time, but there's nothing here that's offensive).

You've also got Arsenio Hall before he went all chat show (and he, like Murphy, has a number of roles). It's funny seeing Eriq Le Salle pre-ER since he was such a humourless bore there, but here he's having a great sleazy time. And Sam Jackson's minor role sees him come on like he's got the Pulp Fiction job 6 years early.

By most accounts Murphy had become a complete tosser by this point in his career, so it's ironic that this is such a restrained, character-led performance. Aside from the vainglorious version of himself he essayed in Bowfinger this is probably his straightest role. It's telling that he dived headfirst into self produced/ written/ starred in vanity-piece Harlem Nights after this (which made half the money, a disaster by Murphy standards), then blindly crashed into a lazy 48 Hrs sequel. When he came back after a 2-year break with Boomerang, it was his best film since the mid-80s (and it's a shame he went from more interesting choices like Boomerang and The Distinguished Gentleman into the easy-yuks family fare of Nutty Professor and Dr Doolittle).

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