Life (1999 film)


Life is a 1999 American buddy comedy-drama film written by Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone and directed by Ted Demme. The film stars Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence. It is the second film that Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence have worked on, the first being Boomerang. The supporting cast includes Ned Beatty, R. Lee Ermey, Obba Babatundé, Bernie Mac, Anthony Anderson, Miguel A. Núñez Jr., Bokeem Woodbine, Guy Torry, Michael Taliferro and Barry Shabaka Henley. The film's format is a story being told by an elderly inmate about two of his friends, Ray and Claude, who are both wrongfully convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison.

Plot

At the Mississippi State Penitentiary, elderly convict Willie Long attends the burial of two friends and fellow inmates who recently died in an infirmary fire. As two younger inmates begin digging their graves, Willie begins to recount the life story of his deceased friends.
In 1932, Rayford "Ray" Gibson and Claude Banks are two New Yorkers from two different worlds. Ray is a small-time hustler and a petty thief, and Claude, an honest, yet often selfish minded man, has just been accepted for a job as a bank teller at First Federal of Manhattan. One evening, they are both at a club called Spanky's when Ray picks Claude as his mark to pick-pocket. After a meeting in the bathroom, they both end up in the bad graces of the club's owner Spanky, with Spanky threatening to drown Claude until Ray convinces Spanky to allow himself and Claude to do some boot-legging to pay off their debt. Claude is spared, and he and Ray begin heading down south in order to buy a carload of Mississippi 'hooch'. Upon arrival, they pay for the booze and enter a local bar, where Ray meets a man named Winston Hancock while playing cards. With no money, Ray bets his father's prized pocketwatch, but ends up losing the game and the watch to Winston. Dejected, Ray soon realises the game was fixed after discovering a waitress had helped Winston win the game. Outside of the bar, Hancock is shot and killed by the town's sheriff, Warren Pike, who frames Ray and Claude for the murder. A short time later, they go to trial, are convicted, and sentenced to life in prison.
Ray and Claude are sent to an infamous prison camp called 'Camp 8' to perform hard labor. Ray and Claude immediately run afoul of the guards, Sergeant Dillard and Hoppin' Bob, and soon become acquainted with their fellow inmates. Claude first meets Jangle Leg, a homosexual inmate who makes a pass at Claude, and they are later introduced to Willie Long, Biscuit, another gay inmate, Radio, Goldmouth, an imposing prison bully who initially picks a fight with Ray, Cookie, the prison chef, and Pokerface. Shortly into his sentence, Claude has his attorney cousin, Melvin, appeal against his conviction with his girlfriend Daisy's help, but it is denied, and shortly afterwards he finds out that Daisy has left him for Melvin. With any chance of earning his freedom gone, Claude and Ray devise a plan to escape, getting as far as Tallahatchie before being captured and sentenced to a week each in solitary confinement.
Twelve years later, both aged 37 years old, Claude and Ray meet a young mute inmate nicknamed 'Can't-Get-Right', a talented baseball player who catches the eye of a Negro League scout who tells the warden that he can get his sentence pardoned if he agrees to play professional baseball. Ray and Claude, seeing an opportunity for freedom, introduce themselves to the scout as his "handlers", and tell him that Can't-Get-Right will struggle to play well without them. Despite his talent, Can't-Get-Right is often distracted by his attraction to Mae-Rose, the daughter of the Camp 8's superintendent. A short time later, the Superintendent's pregnant daughter gives birth, and he discovers that the baby is biracial. Enraged, the next day, he demands to know who the father is, and, although none of the inmates officially claim responsibility, it's revealed that Can't-Get-Right was the father. During a dance social, Biscuit confides to Ray that he is going to be released; however, now being gay, Biscuit is too ashamed to return to his family, and commits suicide by deliberately running across the "gun line", where he is shot and killed by a guard. After 'Can't-Get-Right' is released to play for the Pittsburgh Crawfords, Ray devises another escape plan but Claude refuses, upset with the fact that 'Can't-Get-Right' was released without them, leading to an argument that results in Ray and Claude going their separate ways – Ray attempts a number of escapes on his own, while Claude continues to work on the camp and the two remain distant.
Twenty-eight years later, in 1972, Ray and Claude are now 65 years old and still not speaking to one another. All of their fellow inmates are gone either by death or release from prison, except for Willie, now confined to a wheelchair. One day, Claude snaps and runs across the gun line to steal a pie from a windowsill, and is punished by having to stand barefoot on a case of bottles for 24 hours. Dillard tells Ray that he wants him to watch Claude, and instructs him to shoot him and kill him if he steps off of the bottles. Ray refuses, and is ordered to partake in the same punishment, where he and Claude begin to talk and repair their friendship. One day, Dillard informs Ray and Claude that they will be transferred to live and work at Superintendent Dexter Wilkins' mansion. Ray works outside of the house, taking care of the yard, while Claude works inside the house and forms a friendship with Wilkins. Shortly after moving into the house, Claude is entrusted to drive and pick up the new superintendent, Sheriff Warren Pike, the same man who framed them for murder forty years earlier. While on a pheasant hunt, Ray notices that Pike still has his father's watch and confronts him, forcing him to the ground and threatening to kill him. Ray tells Wilkins that Pike framed he and Claude for murder, and the sheriff admits to it with no remorse, saying "at least the state of Mississippi got forty years of cheap labor out of the deal." As Claude struggles to stop Ray from killing Pike, Pike attempts to kill them both, but he is shot and killed by Wilkins, who, realizing that Ray and Claude are indeed innocent, covers it up as a hunting accident. He intends to give them a pardon, but dies of a heart attack that same night before he can do so.
In 1997, Ray and Claude are elderly, aged 90 years, living in the prison's infirmary. Claude tells Ray of yet another plan he has devised, but Ray has accepted his fate of dying in prison. That night, the infirmary catches fire, and they seemingly perish in the flames. Willie concludes the tale by outlining Claude's plan: Ray and Claude would steal two bodies from the morgue, start the blaze, plant the bodies, hide in the fire trucks and depart with them in the morning. When the workers ask why the plan didn't work, Willie tells them that he never said it didn't work, as the inmates begin to realize that the bodies they buried are not Ray and Claude, who have escaped back to New York, and are watching a New York Yankees baseball game. The film concludes by revealing the two are again on good terms, free and living together in Harlem.

Cast

Box office

Life was released on April 16, 1999 in North America. The film grossed $73,345,029 worldwide against an $80 million budget, making it a financial disappointment.

Critical response

The film has received mixed reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes it has an approval rating of 50% based on reviews from 54 critics. The site's critic consensus reads, "Entertaining if not over-the-top humor from a solid comic duo provides plenty of laughs." On Metacritic it has a score of 63 out of 100, indicating "generally favorable reviews". Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave it a grade B+.

Awards and nominations

Even though Life was set in Parchman, Mississippi, it was filmed in California; filming locations include Brentwood, CA, Locke, CA, Los Angeles, Downey, CA, and Sacramento, CA. Parts of the film were shot at a Rockwell Defense Plant in California.

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 with over 1 million copies sold on June 18, 1999.