Life (film)

Life
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Ted Demme
Produced by	Brian Grazer Eddie Murphy
Written by	Robert Ramsey Matthew Stone
Narrated by	Obba Babatundé
Starring	Eddie Murphy Martin Lawrence Bernie Mac
Music by	Wyclef Jean
Cinematography	Geoffrey Simpson
Editing by	Jeffrey Wolf
Studio	Imagine Entertainment
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	April 13, 1999
Running time	108 min.
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$75,000,000 (estimated)
Box office	$73,345,029

Life is a 1999 American comedy-drama film directed by Ted Demme, and starring Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence. The supporting cast includes Obba Babatundé, Bernie Mac, Anthony Anderson, Miguel A. Núñez Jr. and Bokeem Woodbine. The film's format is a story being told by an elderly inmate (Babatundé) about two of his friends (Murphy and Lawrence), who are both wrongly convicted of murder and given a life sentence in prison.

It is Murphy's last R-rated film to date.

Plot

The film begins with an elderly inmate named Willie Long (Obba Babatundé) at the burial of his two friends who have just recently perished in a fire in the prison's infirmary. He begins to tell two young men (Heavy D and Bonz Malone) who are inmates at the prison their story.

Ray Gibson (Eddie Murphy) and Claude Banks (Martin Lawrence) are two New Yorkers in 1932 from different worlds. Ray is a small-time hustler and petty thief, and Claude has just been accepted for a job as a bank teller, trying to make something of himself. They are both at a club named Spanky's when Ray picks Claude as his mark to pick-pocket. Later they both end up in debt to the club's owner, a loan shark named "Spanky" (Rick James). Ray arranges to have himself and Claude do some boot-legging in order to pay off their debt.

They head down south from New York to buy a carload of Mississippi 'hooch'. Unfortunately, before they can get back to New York, a man named Winston Hancock (Clarence Williams III), who earlier swindled Ray in a card game, is murdered outside of a juke joint by the sheriff. Through a misunderstanding (and the sheriff's complicity), Ray and Claude are blamed for the crime, and are sentenced to life in prison. They are sent to an infamous prison camp called 'Camp 8', located at the Mississippi State Penitentiary.

At first Claude tries to get out by himself legally by telling his girlfriend Daisy to ask his attorney cousin Melvin to file an appeal on his behalf. Later, Claude gets a letter from Melvin and the news is not good. The appeal has been denied and Daisy has left Claude for Melvin; the two are now engaged to be married. Left with no chance of being released, Claude partners with Ray, who claims to have an escape plan.

Ray and Claude make several attempts to escape the prison. Early in their incarceration, they simply try running away in the middle of the night, getting as far as Tallahatchie before being tracked down; they are sentenced to a week in solitary confinement for their effort.

Around 1944, during World War II, they meet a mute inmate named 'Can't-Get-Right' (Woodbine) who happens to be a talented baseball player. He catches the eye of a Negro League scout who indicates he can get him out of prison to play baseball. Seeing this as a golden opportunity to get out of prison, Ray and Claude tell the scout to put a word in for them as well (as they relate to 'Can't-Get-Right' in that they can coax him best to play). A month before his release, a homosexual inmate, Biscuit (Miguel A. Nuñez), commits suicide by deliberately running past the 'gun line', compelling the rifle-armed trustees to shoot him. After 'Can't-Get-Right' is released to play baseball for the Pittsburgh Crawfords, Ray executes another escape plan (namely, hijacking a Stearman cropduster in a comically failed attempt to fly back to New York City) but Claude wants no part of it, angry with the fact that 'Can't-Get-Right' was released without them. Claude gives up trying to escape and accepts the fact that he will die in prison. This leads to an argument, which in turn leads to Ray and Claude going their separate ways. During the argument, it is revealed that Ray's father was sent to such a camp and hung himself in despair. With Ray and Claude no longer speaking, Camp 8 gets "a little harder and colder", and as 28 years (1944-1972) pass, all of the inmates who were friends of Ray, Claude, and Willie are either released or die in prison.

Many years later, in 1972, Ray and Claude are now elderly and are sent to live and work at Superintendent Dexter Wilkins' (Ned Beatty) mansion. Claude is entrusted to drive with Superintendent Wilkins to pick up the new superintendent (R. Lee Ermey), who happens to be none other than Sheriff Warren Pike, the man who framed them 40 years earlier.

While on a hunt one day, Ray sees Pike pull out a pocket watch, and realizes that it is in fact his father's, which was taken from him 40 years earlier. Ray confronts Pike, grabs a shotgun and accuses him of murdering Hancock. When Wilkins asks if this is true, Pike brags that he not only committed the murder, but framed Ray and Claude, declaring that "the state of Mississippi got 40 years of cheap labor out of the deal". Enraged, Claude and Ray begin fighting over the gun, both determined to shoot him. Pike attempts to kill them with a hidden pistol, but is shot and killed by Wilkins, who now realizes that Ray and Claude are innocent. He tells Ray and Claude he intends to write pardon papers for the two of them, but dies of a heart attack in his bathroom before he is able to do so.

In 1997 (present day), Ray and Claude are now very elderly and living in the (now-integrated) prison's infirmary. They realize by now that the only way they will ever leave prison is when they have died. Later, while playing poker with Willie and some other inmates, Claude tells Ray of a plan that he has thought up, and after a short argument, Ray follows Claude to hear the plan. That night, however, the infirmary catches fire, and everyone is able to get out except Claude. When Willie tells Ray that he is still inside, Ray goes back in to find him. The entrance then caves in behind him, presumably killing him.

In the present day, Willie concludes the tale and the two workers are saddened by the story, but he reveals that the fire was part of the plan thought up by Ray and Claude. The two bodies being buried, presumably of Ray and Claude, were actually taken from the morgue, and Ray and Claude planned to escape the fire and prison by hiding on the departing fire trucks. When the workers ask why the plan did not work, Willie tells them that he "never said it didn't work". Willie wheels himself away, laughing and smoking a cigarette, as the inmates realize that the bodies they buried are not Ray and Claude.

The film ends with Ray and Claude back in New York, at a New York Yankees baseball game, doing what they always do: arguing. The film concludes by revealing the pair now live in Harlem together.

Cast

• Eddie Murphy as Rayford Gibson
• Martin Lawrence as Claude Banks
• Obba Babatundé as Willie Long
• Nick Cassavetes as Sergeant Dillard
• Anthony Anderson as Cookie
• Bernie Mac as Jangle Leg
• Miguel A. Núñez Jr. as Biscuit
• Brent Jennings as Hoppin' Bob
• Bokeem Woodbine as Can't Get Right
• Guy Torry as Radio
• Barry Shabaka Henley as Pokerface
• Ned Beatty as Dexter Wilkins
• Michael Taliferro as Goldmouth
• O'Neal Compton as Superintendent Abernathy
• Noah Emmerich as Stan Blocker
• Rick James as Spanky
• R. Lee Ermey as Older Sheriff Pike
• Ned Vaughn as Younger Sheriff Pike
• Clarence Williams III as Winston Hancock
• Heavy D as Leon
• Bonz Malone as Jake
• Lisa Nicole Carson as Sylvia
• Poppy Montgomery as Older Mae Rose

Release

Life was released in April 1999 and went on to gross over $73 million at the box office (for a $80 million budget). K-Ci & JoJo sang the film's theme song, which was titled "Life", but it was the song "Fortunate" by Maxwell that garnered the most attention from the soundtrack as it received several awards and nominations.

Reception

The film has a 50% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes from critics.

Death/Release Sequence

Most viewers get confused about what inmates were released or died but this here is a list of inmates who were released and passed away.

Released

• Pokerface (Barry Shabaka Henley)
• Cookie (Anthony Anderson)

Passed On

• Jangle Leg (Bernie Mac)
• Goldmouth (Michael Taliferro)
• Radio (Guy Torry)
• Hoppin' Bob (Brent Jennings)
• Biscuit - purposely lead to his own shooting (Miguel A. Núñez, Jr.)

Location

Even though Life was set in Mississippi, Life was filmed in California; filming locations include Locke, CA, Los Angeles, CA, Downey, CA, and Sacramento, CA. Parts of the film were actually shot at a Rockwell Defense Plant in California.^{[citation needed]}

Awards and nominations

• Academy Award
  • nominated for Best Makeup (2000)
• NAACP Image Award
  • nominated for Outstanding Motion Picture (2000)
• BMI Film & TV Awards
  • (won) for Most Performed Song from a Film (2000)
• Blockbuster Entertainment Awards
  • nominated with Eddie Murphy for Favorite Comedy Team (2000) for the movie
  • nominated for Favorite Song from a Movie (Fortunate)

Soundtrack listing

Main article: Life (soundtrack)

A soundtrack containing hip hop and R&B music was released on March 16, 1999 on Rock Land/Interscope Records. It peaked at 10 on the Billboard 200 and 2 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums and was certified platinum for over 1 million copies sold on June 18, 1999.

External links

• Life at the Internet Movie Database
• Life at Box Office Mojo