Life Shows Eddie Murphy's Underused Dramatic Chops

Film audiences in 1999 were fortunate enough to see a different side of Eddie Murphy. While he was a guarantor of comedy hits throughout the '80s and '90s, Murphy only gave audiences glimpses of his all-around talents as a one-of-a-kind movie star. His career featured recurring minor ebbs and flows, and coming off of The Nutty Professor in 1996, he was in the midst of a resurgence of super-stardom. Life should have been the ultimate summation of his remarkable career, but instead, this comedy-drama about a pair of wrongfully convicted friends who bond during a life sentence in prison arrived without much fanfare. A middling box office return and mixed reviews caused this film from Ted Demme to come and go, but a retroactive examination of the star vehicle for Murphy shines a light on his untapped potential as a dramatic actor, and exhibits a window to the kind of projects he could have taken on more often in his later years.