I am an Eddie Murphy fan. Pound for
pound, he may be the best "actor" in Hollywood. In any given movie,
he can make you believe he's a cheesy lounge singer, or Jewish, or Asian, or a
geek, or a professor, or the professor's mother, or father, or grandmother, or
a robot...I'm not speaking to the scripts he accepts, but insofar as playing a
role, he's covered plenty of ground from cop to crook.
Most people who remember his 80s
material will long for those more earthy roles against the kiddie movie fluff
he's been doing of late (although, as Disney can tell you, there's money in
kiddie fluff). However, it isn't to say all his earlier films are nothing but
"filth, flarn, flarn, filth" - an all too easily forgotten gem is The
Distinguished Gentleman.