It may have seemed a stretch for Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer and Bernie Mac to go on tour as the "Kings of Comedy," and even a bigger stretch to call MTV's movie of that concert in Charlotte, N.C., last February
The Original Kings of Comedy.
Although Harvey and Mac are on television and Mac has made several films, none of the four is exactly a household name, such as Eddie Murphy and Richard Pryor were when they did the movie versions of their tours.
Not yet anyway.
The Original Kings of Comedy
might change their status.
While standup had its biggest day in the 1980s and has been on the ropes since, with most of the action on cable TV shows and small nightclubs, the idea behind the tour was to package four of America's current top black standup comics and put them on tour in enormous venues. The film was shot over two nights at the Charlotte Coliseum on video under the direction of Spike Lee, then transferred to film.
It's a funny evening that, unlike Pryor and Murphy's routines, is surprisingly clean. Much of
The Original Kings of Comedy
could be rated PG-13 if it weren't for the profanity that's peppered liberally over everything.
Most of the jokes revolve around the differences between black people and white people. Hughley explains that there aren't any black bungee-cord jumpers because the sport looks too much like a lynching; Cedric says the reason one never hears of blacks being the victims of mass murders is that, "We run." While Harvey takes aim at angry rappers or clues us in as to how the outcome of the Titanic sinking would have been different if black people had been on board, Mac tells why it's a bad thing to mess with a black woman's hair and Cedric takes us to a ghetto wedding. The flower girls come down the aisle with no flowers, strewing sunflower seeds instead . . . which everyone dives to get.
There also are the usual comedy staples -- Viagra, avoiding bill collectors, the differences between men and women.
Lee pauses several times to intercut shots of the guys offstage, playing poker or shooting baskets. This includes one of the film's funniest moments when Mac looks directly into the camera lens and says edgily that the reason he hasn't been given a TV show is because "you scared I might say something." Lee also makes good use of audience reactions, which provides a you-are-there immediacy. But the videotape-to-film transfer gives the movie a soft focus and, unfortunately, most of the action takes place in front of a shiny aqua and blue curtain that's not especially flattering.
Harvey does his own routine at the start, then introduces the other comics. He also makes brief appearances between their routines. He and Cedric have the funniest material in a movie that's breezy and amusing, though full of naughty words.
*** out of five The Original Kings of Comedy
Starring
: Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer, Bernie Mac.
Playing
: Providence Place, Showcase Seekonk 1-10 and Showcase Warwick cinemas.
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