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During my teenage years, Eddie Murphy's stand up video, Delirious, was one of the most popular comedy routines that was out there. People would talk about it, would quote it, would get together and watch it and would just try to be Eddie Murphy, most of the time unsuccessfully. Delirious was one of Murphy's defining moments of the 80's and he rode that wave for years and years following its release. Hell, even to this day, if I go on a road trip, I will take the tape I have of Delirious and listen to it in my car and still laugh my ass off.
Then, in 1987, Murphy came out with his much-anticipated follow-up to Delirious, his stand-up routine which was entitled Raw, which was filmed in New York City. I still remember how anxious my friends and I were to watch this and how happy we were the day it came out. I can remember watching about the first 5 minutes of Raw and my father was in the room and he got up and walked away in disgust (I believe it was shortly after the gay jokes that were being told). The fact that he walked out of the room only further enhanced our anticipation of what was to come. Well, I have to say, we ended up being rather disappointed. Sure, Raw has its moments of hilarity. But it came nowhere close to matching the grandeur of Delirious. There were no "ice cream" jokes, no "Mr. T" jokes, no "shit furniture" jokes and no "Elvis" jokes. It has some laughs, a few really good ones too, but it's not classic stand-up and in the end, it might be worth a single viewing. It is not very memorable.
Well, Raw is now available on DVD. I gave it another chance, thinking maybe after all these years I would give it a second look and possibly get the jokes that I missed as a snot-nosed teenager. But the humour did not stand up over the years. I laughed at many parts - the Richard Pryor bit about taking a shit was pretty good. And there were a few other funny bits but it's probably slightly above average comedy, at best. The strange thing is that it was the years after Delirious and before Raw that Murphy was the king of the world. The guy was almost untouchable and everything he touched turned to gold. Just taking a look at Murphy's filmography in the years following Raw, the only movie he starred in that was close to gold was Coming to America. Everything after that, the world could have done without, excluding Shrek and Skrek 2 of course, which I wouldn't really classify as Eddie Murphy movies. It is quite sad when you think about it.
Nevertheless, Raw is probably worth checking out if you are a huge fan of stand-up routines or for the handful of Eddie Murphy fans that are still alive out there. It is a profanity-laced performance so be forewarned - this is not a Jerry Seinfeld bit you will be seeing here. He swears, he makes sexist jokes, racial jokes, jokes about other celebrities (some who are no longer celebrities), penis jokes. He covers a lot here. And as I said earlier, this is not the Eddie Murphy that has starred in movies such as Dr. Dolittle and The Nutty Professor. He takes no prisoners in Raw. Actually, fans of Sam Jackson might want to see the skit at the beginning of Raw that briefly features Mr. Jackson, although it isn't anything noteworthy. But if you are in the mood for some real funny shit, check out Delirious instead.
The DVD of Raw does not include any bonus features or extras, which probably isn't a bad thing. Overall, it's a okay routine that starts out on fire but loses its steam by the end of the bit. The entire routine lasts almost 90 minutes and out of that 90 minutes, only about 45 minutes of that is even close to being humourous, despite the fact that Murphy seems to have the New York crowd wrapped around his finger from beginning to end.
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