FilmSkool — a free film school
Life
Two men in 1930s Mississippi become friends after being sentenced to life in prison together for a crime they did not commit.
1999 · Directed by Ted Demme · 108 min · Comedy · Crime · Screenplay in the scene database · 9 frames
Tagline
Share it with someone you love.
Plot
In 1997, at the Mississippi State Penitentiary, elderly convict Willie Long tells two inmates his friends' life stories at their burial. Ray Gibson and Claude Banks, vastly different New Yorkers, meet at the club Spanky's in 1932. Small-time thief Ray nicks Claude's wallet, who had just been cleaned out by debt collectors, as a mark in a bathroom.
Ray convinces Spanky to allow them to pay off their debts via bootlegging in the South, where they experience racial actions and are denied service at Whites Only businesses. Buying Mississippi "hooch" down south, they stop in a local bar. Ray claims to own a club called “Ray’s Boom Boom Room” in Manhattan, later admitting it only exists in his mind, but expressing ultimately that dreams begin in the mind; the Boom Boom Room becomes a recurring theme throughout the film.
Ray loses his father's prized pocket watch in a poker game to card hustler Winston Hancock, and Claude gives their last 2 dollars to a prostitute named Sylvia. Outside, racist sheriff Warren Pike demands Hancock leave town, but Hancock strikes Pike in the face, leaving a scar. Pike then kills Hancock, takes Ray's pocket watch, and frames Ray and Claude for the murder.
Plot summary from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.
Crew
- Screenplay: Robert Ramsey, Matthew Stone
- Cinematography: Geoffrey Simpson
- Edited by: Jeffrey Wolf
- Music: Wyclef Jean
- Production design: Dan Bishop
- Produced by: Eddie Murphy, Brian Grazer
Cast
- Eddie Murphy as Rayford Gibson
- Martin Lawrence as Claude Banks
- Obba Babatundé as Willie Long
- Nick Cassavetes as Sergeant Dillard
- Anthony Anderson as Cookie
- Barry Shabaka Henley as Pokerface
- Brent Jennings as Hoppin' Bob
- Bernie Mac as Jangle Leg
- Miguel A. Núñez Jr. as Biscuit
- Michael Taliferro as Goldmouth
Production
- Country: United States of America
- Language: English
- Studios: Universal Pictures, Imagine Entertainment, Eddie Murphy Productions, Brian Grazer Productions
- Budget: $80,000,000
- Box office: $73,500,000
- Themes: mississippi river, racist, bootlegging, criminal, biting, life imprisonment, hopeless, 1930s, anxious, callous
More by Ted Demme
On this film
This is the plain index, shown because JavaScript is off. Every lesson here is a free video published by the channel credited on it and plays through that channel's own embed — FilmSkool hosts nothing.