Life

    Life
    1999

    Synopsis

    Two men in 1930s Mississippi become friends after being sentenced to life in prison together for a crime they did not commit.

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    Cast

    • Eddie MurphyRayford Gibson
    • Martin LawrenceClaude Banks
    • Obba BabatundéWillie Long
    • Nick CassavetesSergeant Dillard
    • Bernie MacJangle Leg
    • Michael TaliferroGoldmouth
    • Anthony AndersonCookie
    • Barry Shabaka HenleyPokerface
    • Miguel A. Núñez Jr.Biscuit
    • Bokeem WoodbineCan't Get Right

    Recommendations

    • 80

      L.A. Weekly

      Demme (Monument Ave.) brings a sure hand with pace and structure to the soft-at-heart script by Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone, allowing Murphy, Lawrence and company to sit back and focus on the job at hand -- making us laugh.
    • 80

      Los Angeles Times

      Gracefully bittersweet and balanced. [16 April 1999, Calendar, p.F-1]
    • 75

      Christian Science Monitor

      No show-business tradition is sturdier than the two-man comedy team, and no contemporary stars are better suited to the format than Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence. Pairing them was a terrific idea.
    • 70

      The New York Times

      Lawrence and Murphy make an entertaining team. And they are surrounded by a supporting cast that makes the prison setting more pleasant than it has any right to be.
    • 70

      Variety

      Careens from decade to decade, and from relative dramatic realism to frequent hilarity, in often-winning fashion.
    • 50

      San Francisco Examiner

      If it's difficult to find straight laughs in a colorblind prison movie (It's difficult enough to find a colorblind prison movie), finding straight laughs in a black one is almost impossible.
    • 50

      The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

      The result is a movie that's both odd and mediocre: not as bad as doing hard time, but not a particularly good time, either.
    • 50

      Entertainment Weekly

      Life desperately wants to let Murphy and Lawrence be actors, but it can't imagine them as anything more than rowdy showmen. That's a kind of prison as well.

    Seen by

    • Ninjula
    • skolpols