Boomerang

The Eddie Murphy romantic/sex comedy "Boomerang" is, quite simply, a thorough and total joy. Murphy portrays longtime womanizer Marcus Graham with his usual charm and poise. Halle Berry is absolutely appealing and absolutely warm as the girl who prompts Marcus to clean up his horny act. Martin Lawrence and David Alan Grier provide ingratiating and stylish buddy-support. Lela Rochon and Eartha Kitt are, respectively, magnificently kittenish and magnificently cougar-ish as women with whom Marcus scores. Yet the film's greatest asset, its leading lure is Robin Givens's portrayal of Marcus's boss/female counterpart Jacqueline Broyer. She is by turns sexy and stylish, sultry and commanding, seductive and polished. We immediately see why Marcus falls under her spell and, when she dumps him, not only do we not turn against her, we admire her independent spirit and her no-bullshit attitude. Really and truly, by and of itself "Boomerang" is a sexy, charming, absolutely joyous romantic/sex farce; with Robin Givens on board, however, it achieves genuine cinematic greatness.

A marketing executive quickly learns that what comes around, goes around when this Don Juan's new boss turns out to be a Don Juan-ita. Eddie Murphy gives the finest performance of his career as Marcus, a player who meets his match with Robin Givens, but finds love in Halle Berry. Murphy barely drops the F-bomb in the film and the character is well developed by Murphy himself, who had a hand in the writing credits for the film. A fun film that features a great supporting cast of David Allen Grier, Martin Lawrence and John Witherspoon.

There are a lot of top black actors in this movie. Halle Berry, Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, even Chris Rock. It was cool to see them all working together and I had a good laugh throughout the movie. A lot of famous lines come from this movie and I had no idea. Good old school Eddie flick.

After a terrible 1991 loanout to Hollywood Pictures for the weak comedy "The Distinguished Gentleman", Eddie Murphy returned to Paramount the following year and gave one of his all time best and funniest performances in this romantic comedy with a twist. Murphy portrays Marcus Graham, a New York advertising executive who is known by many people throughout New York for being a notorious player, a man who will date a woman, get her into bed by the end of the first date, judge her by the lovemaking and then dump her. Marcus is quite happy with having this rather low lifestyle and way of treating women. He goes around proudly reporting the previous night's results each morning to his friends (David Alan Grier, Martin Lawrence). One day, an attractive young woman (Robin Givens) becomes the advertising company's new boss. Marcus naturally feels that she will be his next target for romantic using and gets more than he ever bargained for when she winds up being the first woman ever who can see through his tricks and try to get back at him for it (hence the title). Murphy is absolutely hilarious in his role as a player who gradually learns to get lessons in treating women right and Halle Berry has a early leading film part as another work colleague who eventually comes between the Murphy/Givens love affair. Several other popular character actors and actresses make appearances here too.

A few things seems weird about the IMDb reviews of this movie, to bring it down to a 5.4 ratings. 1. It's funny how a lot of reviewers remember walking out of the theaters, when they wrote their reviews 12...15...17 years after the movie was released. Like it was a personal vendetta against Eddie Murphy and the Hudlin brothers. 2. The movie, in 1992, was actually quite popular and didn't get panned by critics. So, it's funny to see so many 1 ratings, and people reviewing it as if it were the worst movie ever made. 3. I've always heard the rumors (and witnessed it myself) that IMDb reviewers don't seem to like popular black movies or TV shows. Seems like trolls, from entities other than those that make black productions, want to discourage potential viewers from seeing something other than their own creations.

My review: A very good rom-com with a great cast of old favorites and legends.