Word: gentleman
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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EDDIE MURPHY IS AN UNLIKELY FRONT man for a bald satire of political action committees. But THE DISTINGUISHED GENTLEMAN has the star updating Mr. Smith Goes to Washington with heaps of '90s cynicism and '60s righteousness. Thomas Jefferson Johnson (Murphy) is no saintly Jefferson Smith from the Frank Capra classic; he is a shakedown artist improbably elected to Congress who is tempted, then troubled, by corrupting PACS and perks. A pity that director Jonathan Lynn (My Cousin Vinny) lacks the daredevil touch for a blend of 60 Minutes and Saturday Night Live. Murphy still has his supernova smile...
...ELICITING THE MENACE THAT LURKS in familiar surroundings, there's no one like Patricia Highsmith. RIPLEY UNDER WATER (Knopf; $21) is her fifth novel featuring the fastidious, charming murderer Tom Ripley, now living the life of a country gentleman in France. But this time Ripley plays the mouse; the cats are two creepy new American neighbors who seem to know his darkest secrets. Part of the pleasure of reading Highsmith comes from her evocative descriptions of place, whether small French villages or Tangier or London. Even so, they are but momentary diversions from the sense of foreboding and the most...
Sometimes art gets it just right. In a particularly delicious scene in The Distinguished Gentleman, the latest Hollywood film about political corruption, a lobbyist asks the movie's protagonist his position on sugar-price supports. The con artist turned Congressman (played by Eddie Murphy) has gone to Washington to commit legalized larceny, but he doesn't have a clue about sugar. Which position would prove most profitable? he wonders. It doesn't matter, Murphy is told. If he favors the program, the sugar producers will fill his campaign coffers; if he opposes it, the candy manufacturers will kick in. Similarly...
Under normal circumstances, I would have spoken up. Under normal circumstances, in fact, I would have delivered a small lecture, in which I explained exactly where I thought this gentleman could wave his book. But today, I was voiceless, powerless. I let him pass me, and waited longer in line...
...most humorous transformations takes Ugga Bugga (Josh Lieb) from flamboyantly capering, gibbering cannibal to a ridiculous figure of suave eloquence who declares: "The eating of a gentleman is incongruous with my fancy civilized ways." A commentary on colonialism and the loss of indigenous tradition? Perhaps...