Social Icons

The Distinguished Gentleman (1992)


The Distinguished Gentleman (1992)



5/10



Starring
Eddie Murphy
Lane Smith
Sheryl Lee Ralph
Joe Don Baker
Victoria Rowell


Directed by Jonathan Lynn


In this movie, Eddie Murphy plays a conman who cons his way through life and eventually finds his way into Congress. Putting aside the fictitious script and just focusing on the comedy, I have to say it’s very light. It seemed like the whole idea of selling a conman as sharp and funny outweighed the goal of making the script entertaining as a comedy along the way.

Many times, the comedy just wasn’t strong enough to get a laugh out of you, but the movie itself was good enough to make you want to see it through to the end. That’s the good thing about this movie—it plucks at your curiosity. But since the movie was supposed to be a comedy, it wasn’t well-received as one and didn’t pull much weight at the box office.

Now, here’s the gist: Thomas Jefferson Johnson (Eddie Murphy) is a conman, and he pulls off his schemes with his crew. He’s been at this for years, and it just so happens that the congressman of his district—a man named Jefferson Johnson (same name as his)—died in office while having an affair.
Thomas happened to overhear a lot about the money being thrown around in politics during one of his cons, and he decided to use his name as an opportunity.

He knew many people just vote for the name they’re used to without checking who it is, so he decided to run for Congress as an independent. He won by the technicality of his name, and now all he wants is to steal and con as much money as he can.
That plan would have been easy if he knew what he was doing and how to get things done there. Luckily, he ran into other congressmen who’d been doing this for years. They were willing to take him under their wing as long as he stayed on their side.

Thomas soon found out that stealing from the people he’s supposed to serve wasn’t easy, as he’s faced with a challenge. Will he stand up for his constituents and go after his new friends, or will he just play ball?

Well, I’m pretty sure you can guess what he did, but how he did it was what the movie was about. Even though the ideas were far-fetched and wouldn’t fly in the real world, it was fun to watch.
Eddie Murphy and his co-stars did a good job keeping me interested in seeing how things would end, but they failed to make me laugh.

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Disclaimer

All images featured on this site are the property of their respective copyright owners. They are used solely for illustrative and commentary purposes under fair use principles. This site is a personal blog, unaffiliated with or endorsed by any copyright holders. If you are the copyright owner of an image featured here and wish to have it removed, please contact me directly, and I will address your request promptly.