Harlem Nights (Eddie Murphy, 1989)

 Now when it comes to Eddie Murphy, for my book, he is a highly underrated actor, successful financially in the 80s, but never critically acclaimed. Now I am not saying that Eddie doesn't have his share of blame for that, he has played in many crappy movies that were simply a paycheck and nothing more. But truth says that when he is given a great piece, like the biographical film of 2019, Dolemite Is My Name, then you can clearly see that the man has a great talent in humorous acting. Eddie has written and directed only one movie in his career. Harlem Nights. And without the slightest exaggeration is, by far, the best thing that he has ever done in his career. Harlem Nights is a movie that takes place in the late 30s and it is a homage to the jazz era with the big night clubs of the time in Harlem. It deals with gangsters and corrupt policemen, aside everything else.

Now the first thing that comes into my mind is that this is a totally different movie, from the ones that we are used in watching Eddie Murphy. This is a classy, filled with finesse film that takes a lot from the form and atmosphere without forgetting its comedic roots. Needless to say that it was critically panned. The critics, as big dickheads that they are failed to see the movie for what it is and they stayed, like many times before and after this occasion, in an inexplicable hostility towards the creator. Eddie Murphy is no good actor, playing in no good popcorn movies, so his movie must be an unforgettable piece of shit. That's what they thought and wrote. In reality Harlem Nights is an incredible movie, filled with the sounds of Herbie Hancock's soundtrack and other classic jazz era sounds and it is by all means a movie that really bewitches you. Coming in a decade where the popcorn cinema had put aside any other film genre, an actor turned writer and director for the first time is choosing a period piece, a straightforward African American themed movie, a movie that relies heavily on tone and flavor rather than acting and prose, although both of them are simply superb. Eddie made it and he ingeniously combined the great actors that he chose with an absolutely loving atmosphere for his movie, a movie that stands as one of the great, mistreated examples of the 80s decade, a film that went without a reason with the rest of the garbage in the trash can. Harlem Nights is a proof that American cinema can be so beautiful and nostalgic sometimes that you feel broken-hearted by it. The only thing that I have to say about that movie is that it brings back loving memories of my childhood when I first realized that there were beautiful things in this world except the horrid and miserable reality that I was living.