The Free View-- weblog of a presidential candidate: The Distinguished Gentleman

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Please click this and help my rating:

December 24, 2002

The Distinguished Gentleman

I'm watching The Distinguished Gentleman right now-- the Eddie Murphy movie from 1992. I've seen it a bunch of times, but notIt sort of a cheesy comedy at times, but it's one of my favorite political movies. Behind the comedy and the romantic sub-plot (a familiar feature from that era of Murphy's movies) is a hardball portrayal of the system in D.C.. Payoffs, lobbyists, treachery, the whole schmeel...it's all laid bare in nice simple terms.

It's sort of a Fletch crossed with The Candidate. And Murphy's character plays the system in way that's entirely feasible, and nails the bad guys. Good stuff. It's at least on my top 10 political movies of all time list, and maybe top 5. I might get some flack for that, but I'll hold to it.

Oh -- and I'll surely get some flack for this -- I also respect that it has a realistic amount of swears in it. Since PG-13 is supposedly the new golden rating in terms of making money -- or so I've heard -- there's a lot more PG-13 movies, which have a delicate balance of swears, usually a small handful spread out across the movie. And it's just not realistic. A lot of times you can see how the filmmakers have delicately constructed the movie around the rules and guidelines of the rating system. It's counterintuitive to producing art, I think, and it's too bad movie makers spend so much time worrying about what rating their film will get.

The Distinguished Gentleman isn't loaded with swears or anything, but it has them when people get angry or excited, and when they're being casual and familiar, which is when people swear. It was refreshing.

Posted by Lance Brown at December 24, 2002 10:38 PM | TrackBack

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