Movie Review: Dolemite is My Name

I didn’t know much about this movie before watching it on Netflix, but I’m glad I finally got a chance to see it. I also didn’t know too much about Rudy Ray Moore before watching the movie, but I’m really glad I saw it because the acting was incredible, and the screenplay was amazing.

The film starts off with the song “Let’s Get It On” by Marvin Gaye playing at a radio station in the 1970s. Rudy goes to Roj, the DJ of the radio station (played by Snoop Dogg) and asks him if his records are going to get some air time. The DJ tells him that his records aren’t going to sell well, and Rudy finds himself at a deadlock. His comedy shows bomb and the owner of the comedy club doesn’t like his shows. In short, Rudy is struggling to make it in his career, and every time he tries to do something, he falls short. This prompts Rudy to meet with a guy who he kicked out of his record store, and he has the guy and other friends tell some jokes. Rudy then imitates the jokes they made later on at home and records himself improvising on those jokes. He ends up creating an alter ego for himself called Dolemite, and his catchphrase becomes “Dolemite is my name, and f*cking up motherf*ckers is my game!” He releases a series of albums and sells out a lot of his shows, and he recruits Lady Reed, a woman whose man just cheated on her. She doesn’t believe in herself, but Dolemite sees potential in her, and he asks her what she did for a living. She tells him she used to be a backup singer in New Orleans, and he recruits her for his comedy show. When she is reluctant, he tells her that she just needs to create a character for people, like he did. In real life, he is Rudy Ray Moore, but onstage he is the character, the alter ego, Dolemite, who tells raunchy jokes and curses a lot. She ends up joining him and they make a really hilarious duo, singing goofy raunchy songs and making audiences laugh (it kind of reminded me of the time my then-partner and I were sitting together one time, and he had me listen to “Hand Job, Blandjob, I Don’t Understand Job” by the folk duo Garfunkel and Oates. I think I almost peed my pants laughing so hard when I heard the song.)

Then, Dolemite meets Jerry Jones, a playwright (played brilliantly by Keegan-Michael Key of another hilarious duo, Key and Peele) and approaches him for a movie he wants to make. At first, the guy he works with at the record store, Theodore (played by Titus Burgess of The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt) says that he can’t just up and make a movie, but Rudy won’t take no for an answer, and he approaches Jerry and asks if he can work with him. After giving into Rudy’s persuasion, Jerry meets back at Rudy’s place to write the screenplay with him. Rudy comes up with all kinds of wild outlandish ideas, and Jerry tells him to be practical and “write what you know.” Rudy gets sad for a moment and then thinks up all these different characters in the film because he thinks that his average everyday life won’t be interesting enough to put on the big screen. Jerry hears these ideas that Rudy says and then thinks it’s brilliant, and him and Rudy churn out the screenplay. Then Rudy finds an old beat up hotel to film the movie in, and recruits Nick and some other white film students to direct the film.

Before doing that, he meets with D’Urville Martin (played brilliantly by Wesley Snipes), a distinguished director who has done countless well-renowned movies. When Rudy pitches his idea to him, D’Urville is offended that Rudy would approach him to work on such an outlandish movie, but he does it anyway because Rudy keeps persuading him to work on the movie with him. D’Urville directs it and is absolutely frustrated, trying to impose his own ideas about how the movie should be onto Rudy and the crew members. But they still end up making the movie, even with all the twists and turns. Rudy tells them on the way to the midnight premiere of Dolemite that even if the movie gets booed, they still won because they had fun during the filmmaking process.

It kind of reminded me of this movie I saw called Be Kind Rewind. If you haven’t seen Be Kind Rewind, it’s starring Jack Black and Yasiin Bey (he is listed in the credits by his stage name, Mos Def) who work at a movie store that is about to be closed down. Jerry, played by Jack Black, gets the idea of remaking movies that people don’t like and making these movies with him and Mike (Yasiin Bey) playing the characters in the movies. They charge the movies for high rental fees, and when someone angrily comes in saying the movie they gave them was a ripoff Jerry tells him that the film is “sweded,” and that it is expensive because the tapes came from Sweden. Then they recruit a young woman, played by Melonie Diaz, to star in their movies, and in the process they end up having a brilliantly fun goofy time. Danny Glover’s character reminded me of D’Urville because at one point while making the remake of Rush Hour, Danny’s character quits because he thinks that the two of them are just silly amateurs for making these movies. However, many people end up coming back to the movie store to watch the films. As someone who wants to make a movie myself, I needed to watch both Be Kind Rewind and Dolemite is My Name to remind myself to be serious about my creative work, but to not take myself so seriously and to appreciate the moments when I do have fun.

Here is the trailer for Dolemite is My Name:

Dolemite is My Name. 2019. Rated R for pervasive language, crude sexual content, and graphic nudity.