Surely there must be a better way to utilize the man’s talents.ĭirecting this transformation from rascal to caring leading man is the overmatched Reginald Hudlin, whose “House Party” (which Hudlin also wrote) had a kind of playfulness that never really gets untracked in the face of Murphy’s powerful star-vehicle machinery. Watching the best wisenheimer in the business determinedly turning himself into a sensitive, New Age guy is an exercise in sheer frustration. Instead of being funny, Murphy spends much of “Boomerang” with a hapless, woe-is-me look on his face, a lovelorn little boy lost who must learn humility and humanity before true happiness can be his. Instead, we get the spectacle of a misunderstood nice guy being maltreated by a heartless woman.

The problem is that Murphy, determined to portray a nice guy no matter what, doesn’t have the nerve to play Marcus as the cad he has to be if his chastisement is to mean anything. Blaustein and David Sheffield (the duo officially credited with “Coming to America”) is the very viable idea of a Casanova who gets his comeuppance. You’ll know.”īuried somewhere in the lackluster script by Barry W. “When I seduce you, if I decide to seduce you,” she tells him with devastating aplomb, “don’t worry. He tries his best lines on her and she finds them, well, pathetic. He’s the type who sends out long-stemmed roses to half a dozen conquests along with notes reading, “Thinking only of you.”Īll of this changes when he meets Jacqueline (Robin Givens), the stunning woman who not only becomes his boss after a corporate merger but is his match in romantic game-playing as well. The man dresses beautifully, has an apartment to match, and is absolutely irresistible to women. Marcus Graham is no hustler, no scrambler after respectability, he is a polished and successful director of marketing for a successful cosmetics corporation. The first indication that we’re dealing with a new Eddie Murphy comes in the character he plays.

Watching Murphy in “Boomerang” it is almost impossible to remember the sharp, high-spirited exhilaration he brought to comedy in films like “48 HRS.” and “Trading Places.” That edge, despite what has been claimed in interviews, is now invisible, and when Murphy deigns to do funny material here, it is very much with an air of noblesse oblige, the generous potentate scattering crumbs to a grateful peasantry. Not only is that a role that Murphy has no particular flair for, it also leads to a squandering of the considerable talent he does have. Instead he wants to be thought of as a romantic leading man, a suave successor to Cary Grant and friends. Once one of the funniest of men, with $1 billion in worldwide grosses to prove it, he now, like Robin Williams before him, seems to feel that comedy isn’t quite good enough. Only 31 years old, Murphy, if “Boomerang” is any indication, is having himself an identity crisis. Such is now the case with Eddie Murphy.Įxhibit A is “Boomerang” (citywide), a film that is more listless than funny and could surely use some of the energy that animated both Art Buchwald and Paramount Pictures in the lawsuit surrounding authorship of Murphy’s 1988 “Coming to America.” Basically a multimillion-dollar vanity project, “Boomerang” is also a misguided whatever-Eddie-wants-Eddie-gets attempt to reposition him in the cinematic firmament. You can tell a performer is in trouble when his legal entanglements are more entertaining than his movies.

Eddie murphy boomerang