The Distinguished Gentleman

New York Newsday
Part II Section, pg. 74
Friday, December 4th, 1992

"Con Man Saves His Soul In Congress"
By Jack Mathews

"The Distinguished Gentleman" (R) his best performance since the first "Beverly Hills Cop," Eddie Murphy plays a Florida con man who runs for Congress and wins a conscience. With Sheryl Lee Ralph, Lane Smith, Victoria Rowell.

This is not the kind of compliment Eddie Murphy is apt to appreciate, but in watching him in "The Distinguished Gentleman," I was reminded immediately how much fun he can be when he is merely performing, when his great comic gifts are not subordinate to his destructive ego.

Virtually every film where Murphy has had complete creative control has been a creative monstrosity, beginning with "The Golden Child" in 1986 and ending with this past summer's "Boomerang." Murphy may be heading back down that road, having renewed his long-term pact with Paramount, but "The Distinguished Gentleman," made or Disney's Hollywood Pictures division, offers a refreshing break, for us, if not for him.

"The Distinguished Gentleman," directed by "My Cousin Vinny's" talented Jonathan Lynn, is high-concept filmmaking at its unapologetic best. Just as they did with "Sister Act," sending Whoopi Goldberg undercover in a convent, the Disney folks found the perfect comic setup for Murphy, sending him to Washington as a con man-turned-congressman out to fleece a system more corrupt than he is.

Screenwriter Marty Kaplan, former speechwriter for Walter Mondale, knows the territory, and though the story is too silly to qualify as political satire or to warrant the hefty sentimentality in the late stages, he offers a few wry insights into the world of perks and PACs. Learning the facts of Washington life from mercenary lobbyist Terry Corrigan (Kevin McCarthy), Murphy's freshman Congressman, Thomas Jefferson Johnson realizes that every vote is potential boondoggle. Legalized grand larceny.

On a bill to limit awards in malpractice suits, it doesn't matter which way he votes.
"If you're for it, I can get you money from the doctors and the insurance companies," Corrigan says. "If you're against it, I can get you money from the trial lawyers."

"If that's true," Johnson asks, "how does anything get done?"
"It doesn't," Corrigan says, "that's the beauty of the system."

Johnson, elected on a name-recognition fluke (he has the same name as his venerable predecessor, who died astride his administrative assistant), bungles a few early opportunities out of ignorance, but he proves to be a quick study. Told that the big money goes to those sitting on important committees, he finagles his way onto the Power and Industry Committee by convincing its corrupt chairman Dick Dodge (Lane Smith) that the country's minority action groups are mobilizing to protest that powerful body's lack of ethnic mix.

The assignment is a mother lode of potential payoffs for Johnson, but being Dodge's lackey is an ugly way to get rich, and the hustler begins to feel the first nudges of a growing conscience.

Kaplan has referred to "Gentleman" as the flipside of Voltaire's "Candide," where an idealist is made cynical by the harsh realities of life, and it is clear from the moment Johnson meets ardent environmental activist Celia Kirby (Victoria Rowell) that his consciousness will raised through romance.

The movie "Gentleman" seems most inspired by, however, is Frank Capra's "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," particularly the climatic speech in which James Stewart shames a corrupt senior senator into acts of contrition and suicide. The final comeuppance of Lane Smith's smarmy Dick Dodge isn't quite that melodramatic, but it's to relish nonetheless, as is Murphy's marvelous comic mugging throughout.

This is easily Murphy's best comic performance since the first "Beverly Hills Cop." It's his most structured script, and at times that may limit him more than his most avid fans would like. Also, as good as he is at parodying the political scene, Kaplan has no feel for screen romance; there isn't a believable moment to the relationship between Murphy and Kirby.

Given the galumphing awkwardness of Murphy's recent pictures, the flaws and flats spots here are hardly worth mentioning. The deft timing of Lynn's direction moves the story along so quickly you don't have time to ponder the implausibilities, and he got such funny performances from Sheryl Lee Ralph, as Johnson's cousin and crony; Noble Willingham, as an insurance czar with an appetite for telephone sex, and Lane Smith (whose portrayal of Richard Nixon in the mini-series "Final Days' gave him a leg up on sleaze) that Murphy isn't required to carry the movie alone.

Disney's formula of squeezing expansive comic stars into controlled vehicles may not produce any classics, but in the case of "Sister Act" this summer, and "The Distinguished Gentleman" this Christmas, it has produced some reliable and big laughs. We'll take 'em.