Harry here, the fool - Massawyrm actually chose to see this film instead of SIGNS tonight. He actually chose, of his own free will, to see a Martin Lawrence concert film. A man that has been unfunny for the past decade - and I'm trying to search my memory to find something funny he's said or done. And I can't. I really don't think Martin is funny at all, has ever been funny, or will ever be funny. But he didn't suck too bad in BAD BOYS. Having said all that, Massawyrm was Martin's one fan in the world, and he's just woke up to discover I was right. Martin - look what you did to your fan...
Hola all. Massawyrm here with a slightly different attitude than many of you are accustomed to from me. This has been a great summer so far. I’ve seen some really fun movies with few patches of boredom in-between. Oh, I’ve seen some lame films and some films that definitely didn’t live up to their potential, but nothing as of yet had sent me from the theatre as angry, disappointed and upset, with such a complete, utter look of shell-shocked distain as I was dispatched with tonight. You see, tonight I witnessed the possible last gasp of Martin Lawrence, the final evidence I needed to prove that Martin was not the comedian he used to be. Tonight I sat through every painful last minute of Martin Lawrence Live: Runteldat.
This is not just a review my friends. No. This is an open, angry letter to Martin Lawrence.
Martin, what the hell happened here? This is a mess, an absolute nightmare of a stand up comedy film. First you open up with one of the most pretentious documentary introductions I’ve ever seen on a distributed film detailing your tribulations with the press for those that hadn’t heard all the details and rumors. Okay, that was forgivable. It’s clear you didn’t film and edit that yourself. You’re a comedian, not a director. I wrote that off. Then you stepped out on stage from behind a large white screen backlit to reveal you only as a shadow in a menacing pose while fog poured out from the floor. Alright, cheesy as it is, Bill Hicks did the same thing, oh, like 8 years ago, so that was forgivable. If I forgave Bill his cheesiness, I can certainly forgive you. Unimpressed though I was, I didn’t hold it against you. You obviously aren’t a set designer either.
Upon exiting you greeted the crowd and played to it and I felt the excitement well up within me. The real show was about to start. You quieted the crowd and thanked everyone for coming and then, almost as if it were an afterthought, you said “Oh, and if there are any critics here…FUCK YOU!” Then the tirade began. “I hate critics. They’re the scum of the Earth. Just because they can’t do what you’re doing they gotta tell you how to do it. Fuck Them!”
So that’s how it’s gonna be, eh Martin? It’s like that. Okay. Fuck us. You obviously aren’t playing for our support. I can respect that. Hell, I’d probably hate critics too if I’d starred in Black Knight and Big Mamma’s House. But support for this movie is pretty soft. I’m sure your ad people are telling you right now, if they haven’t already, that without some good word on this thing it’s going to go down faster than a sorority pledge in Hell Week. Pissing on the critics was a bold move, a brash one that I can definitely give you props for. You spoke your mind and you weren’t afraid of the repercussions. Kudos.
But Martin, we critics have a job to do. You see, you’re rich. Your producers are rich. You made a movie that’s being distributed by more rich folk like yourself. You have a whole crew of advertising people who ensure that your product is packaged in such a way that everyone in your rich little circle can make as much money as is humanly possible before it becomes but another listing on IMDB, thus becoming richer. Now, more than ever, the ad people are selling movies on merits they doesn’t have. They’re selling us K-19 as an action movie. They sold us Changing Lanes as a thriller. They sold us Orange County with funny scenes that weren’t even in the film. Sometimes we’re shown exactly what we’re sold. Sometimes, when we’re lucky, were surprised by content better than the packaging. And sometimes, yes sometimes, we’re sold bad movies in deceptive wrappers.
We exist because your fans, the audience, well, they aren’t rich. When they spend $8 at the theatre and commit over two hours of their lives to a film, many of them would like to know if they’re going to get what they pay for. Being a man who hasn’t given them what they paid for in at least a couple of years, I can understand your loathing of us. Some of us can be very unkind indeed.
But you see, I don’t walk into movies as a critic. I walk in as a film lover. I only walk out a critic. And I walked in tonight very excited about the prospect of a stand up comedy film on the big screen again. I walked in an old school martin Lawrence fan.
When I think of you Martin, what first pops into my mind isn’t an image of you as a movie star. It’s not the image of the bad films of yours I suffered through praying that at any moment you would save them from their suffocating mediocrity. It’s not the images of the films of yours I’ve enjoyed on repeat occasions and taken years of flak over liking. No, the first image is of you running out onstage of the Def Comedy Jam in red briefs screaming that you weren’t ready. The first image is of a fearless comic with some great original, funny material. That’s the Martin Lawrence I arrived an hour and a half before the show to see. That’s the Martin Lawrence I prayed had returned.
Instead, what I found was the worlds most ecologically friendly Martin Lawrence, and when I say ecologically friendly I mean comprised of entirely recycled material. And how kind you were to not only recycle your own material, but to take on the burden of recycling everyone else’s tired material for them. The bulk of your routine played out like one of those old school late night record collections by aging celebrities and musicians like Jim Neighbors and Zamphir. You know, those collections in which they all perform the same public domain songs like “Feelings”, “Put Your Head on my Shoulder” and “Crazy”. Well, this was the stand up comedy equivalent of those albums. I could almost see the cheesy yellow graphics scrolling up the screen showcasing all the time-honored classics you were giving us your rendition of:
The similarities between babies and the elderly
Spousal abuse
Child abuse
The Anthrax Scare (or “What the fuck is up with the mail? What the fuck is going on with the mail? I open the mail and I get all fucked up! Your eyebrows fall off in 4.3 seconds! That’s fucked up! What the fuck is up with that?”)
White Neighbors of a Black Man
Deez Nutz
Racist a-go-go
Drunk Husband
C.O.P.S.
An Angry Martin Luther King Jr.
Anally Inserted Gerbils
And very little more…
You say in your film “Ride life until the wheels fall off.” Well, I think the word you were looking for was Jokes, not life.
Did I laugh? Oh sure, about a handful of times. But as a professional comedian you know that with a stand up routine you have to keep the audience laughing. You can’t just make them laugh once a minute, once every five minutes…once every half hour. They have to keep on laughing with almost every joke you throw at them.
I know it’s easy to dismiss my ranting as simply a case of someone not within the target demographic of your comedy. I’m a white male in the 24 – 36 age bracket from a middle- income household. I wasn’t exactly the target demographic for Def Comedy Jam or The Original Kings of Comedy, either, but I love those. I watch them all the time. But I know what you’re thinking: I obviously just didn’t get it. Well, neither did whatever your target demographic was, apparently.
I was saddened when I first walked into the theatre. First of all there was no line to get in. An hour and a half before showtime of an advanced screening and there wasn’t a single person in line. In case you’ve never been to one of these, let me tell you thats bad. I talked to the agency rep and the DJ’s M.C.ing the show (who walked out halfway through your film) and found out that 400 passes where given out through radio promotions, each pass allowing 2 people admission. When the lights dimmed no more than a hundred people had shown up. I could count the number of white audience members on one hand with fingers left over. One could argue that this was your target demographic sitting in the theatre.
Did they laugh? On the whole just a little more than I did. Most jokes that garnered a laugh only were sounded by a handful of people. The bulk of the laughter was that of your live audience - which tortured us like some sadistic laugh track bent on reminding us that this was SUPPOSED to be funny. That someone else had enjoyed this rehashed attempt at humor. Man oh man, how I wish I was one of those people.
But then came what was supposed to be your shining moment, the whole pitch of the ad campaign that suckered me in over the past week and a half: Your honesty about your foibles and the way everyone reacted to it. This I have to say was the best part of the film. You were very honest, admitting to being high and being reckless and well, that your problems were your own fault. For that one element of this film I laud you. It was a fresh take on being a celebrity: telling your story without it involving crying to Barbara Walters about it.
That half hour was one of the most honest things I’ve seen on film in years. It was a great motivational story of triumph over adversity. Had I seen only that half hour in the right environment, like some speaking engagement directed at keeping kids on the right track, I might have thought it was pretty good. I certainly wouldn’t have thought it was very funny, even then. But I felt for you and you reeled me in. Despite the lack of laughter I felt that maybe, just maybe, this was the whole point of why you’d done this. That you’d deceived the public into seeing a speech on how things can go terribly wrong and how it all comes down to personal responsibility and accountability by selling them a stand up film. You raised your fist in the air and said “Ride Life until the wheels fall off.”
…and then you proceeded to say “So who here likes sex? Let me hear you. Who here Likes sex? I love sex…” It was then that I was reminded that this was no more than an unfunny series of anecdotes leading up to a climax of “I don’t understand this weird sex stuff” material.
You got your cheap laughs from the live audience, bid your adieu and let the credits roll. This was the funniest part of the film. Not just the autographed picture of yourself on the screen in that sweater that made you look like Malcolm Jamal Warner circa 1985…but the credits that read STARRING followed by Martin Lawrence and a whole lot of black space. The fact that it was scrolling is what made it so funny. That was brilliant, assumedly unintentional, but brilliant.
I left the theatre stunned. I was literally speechless. No rants sprang forth on how bad it was, no laughter at the sheer pomposity of it all. Nothing. Stunned silence. There was no applause from the audience itself, just a quiet exit. The best I heard was “It was a’ight”. They had passed out posters before the film. Several were still in the seats as I left.
I’d like to think that it was the coma that took away your edge, or perhaps even the drugs. It happens to the best of them. I’d like to think that maybe, after this film, you might strive to become what you once were. Believe me, I’d like to see that. But this certainly is nowhere near your best work. It was unfunny, trite and sub-par.
Martin, your job is to entertain. My job is to let people know when something is worth their money or not. One of us did our job. I’ll let you decide which one of us that was.
Sincerely,
A onetime fan,
Massawyrm
