Dolemite is My Name

I love underdog stories, whether it's a sports story or in this case, a entertainer past his prime and who really has no shot of making it in the showbiz world. This is the true story of Rudy Ray Moore, played by the great Eddie Murphy. Dolemite is My Name is kind of like the Black 1970s version of Ed Wood or The Disaster Artist. Rudy is a man who's hell bent on making something of his life after his farmer father told him he would amount to nothing. The story begins with a middle aged, slightly overweight Rudy, working in a record store with a failed singing and comedy career already behind him. But Rudy is tenacious, the belittling words of his father linger in his head; he presses on. He creates the character of Dolemite, a crude, rude, rapping pimp persona with a catch phrase, "Dolemite is my name and fucking up motherfuckers is my game." This line is delivered (multiple times) by Murphy with a profane panache that plastered a big smile onto my face. Murphy is great in this role.
So Rudy begins to have some mild success with his Dolemite character on vinyl records - a large segment of the black intercity crowd loves Dolemite. But when Rudy goes and watches the film, The Front Page, a white comedy for white audiences, he realizes that to be a true star, he needs to make a movie. Rudy goes all in to make a B- version of Shaft with very little in terms of experienced talent or budget. I had a hell of a good time watching it all go down. Catch this bad motherfucker on Netflix.