Enervated 20's

HARLEM NIGHTS (1989)

Reviewed by Jerry Saravia

(Originally seen in 1989)

"Harlem Nights" never knows what it wants to be. A misguided vanity production by Eddie Murphy, it either wants to be a gangster comedy or a serious semi-homage to gangster films from the 30's and 40's. There is plenty of violence and profanity but not much to laugh at, despite clearly comic innuendoes.

Eddie plays Quick, a hotheaded partial owner of a swanky nightclub in Harlem called the Club Sugar Ray. Quick's father figure is Sugar Ray (Richard Pryor), the main owner who is charming and a smooth operator. This club is seen as a threat to the Big Boss, Bugsy Calhoune (Michael Lerner), who wants Sugar Ray out of town because he has his own club to operate. So Bugsy commissions help from the crookedest of cops, Cantone (Danny Aiello), to remind Sugar Ray that his boss wants a cut of the profits.

Meanwhile, there is some business involving the club madam (Della Reese) whom Quick shoots in the foot! There is a deadly mistress (Jasmine Guy, of all people), a stuttering boxer (Stan Shaw), a seductive tease like no tease I've seen in the movies in quite some time (Lela Rochon), and a crying hood (hilariously played by Arsenio Hall).

"Harlem Nights" is almost film noir done in lush tones and dark colors that rob the movie of any comic potential. But that is just it: what is "Harlem Nights" supposed to be? The movie never finds the appropriate tone and gets downright nasty and misogynistic beyond belief. For example, poor Della Reese as the madam is not only shot in the foot but she is almost crushed by a garbage can (I say crushed because the movie's sound effects involving punches and kicks are louder than the explosions and gunfire). There is also a scene of a woman shot in the head after being made love to. Nope, nothing funny about that either. But the movie is either not quite noirish enough or not comedic enough - in short, it is a beautifully lit mess.

There are pluses to "Harlem Nights." Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor prove what suave leading men they can be. Redd Foxx is simply there to be there but he did manage to make me smile with his character's semi-blindness. The score by Herbie Hancock is never obtrusive. But the movie is enervated, slow to a crawl, uneven, and shapeless. Though Eddie Murphy has had his share of follies but as actor, director and writer, I can blame him squarely for making me pass out on this one.