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Bustin' Down the Door
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Express, The
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City of Ember
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Save Me
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House Bunny, The
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Ping Pong Playa
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RocknRolla
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Rocker, The
53
Lucky Ones, The
51
Mamma Mia!
51
Savage Grace
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Holly
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Children of Huang Shi, The
49
Family That Preys, The
47
Swing Vote
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45
Pride and Glory
43
Eagle Eye
43
Death Race
40
Igor
36
Righteous Kill
35
Mirrors
34
My Best Friend's Girl
32
Repo! The Genetic Opera
31
Max Payne
31
Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor, The
28
Fireproof
27
Women, The
26
Babylon A.D.
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19
Saw V
16
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Alphabet Killer, The
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
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Harlem Nights
Paramount Pictures
MPAA RATING: R for profanity and violence
Starring
Eddie Murphy,
Richard Pryor,
Danny Aiello,
Della Reese,
Jasmine Guy,
Lela Rochon,
Michael Lerner,
and
Redd Foxx
He's Quick with a quip, Quick with a gun. And Quick with a scheme to keep mobsters from muscling in on the 1930's Harlem hot spot, Club Sugar Ray. (Paramount Pictures)
| GENRE(S): |
Comedy
|
Crime
|
Drama
|
Romance
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Eddie Murphy
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Eddie Murphy
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: January 29, 2002
Theatrical: November 17, 1989
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
116 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA |
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
50
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
People may go to see Eddie Murphy once, twice, three or even six times in disposable movies like Harlem Nights, but if he wants to realize his potential he needs to work with a better writer and director than himself.
50
Boston Globe
Jay Carr
The best thing about the film is the way it allows Richard Pryor to rise above the demeaning buffoon roles he's been playing for the last few years and finally play a character with dignity and style. [17 Nov 1989, p.89]
50
TV Guide
Staff (Not Credited)
Harlem Nights isn't the embarrassing vanity production it might have been, there's still not a lot to be said for it.
38
USA Today
Mike Clark
I don't mind that Nights is a potty-mouth benchmark; crude verbiage is appropriate to the leads, as well as the film's subject matter. This is, however, an amazingly mean two hours. Even the funniest gag involves Murphy's fatal shooting of three men. [17 Nov 1989, p.6D]
25
Chicago Tribune
Dave Kehr
In Harlem Nights, Eddie Murphy continues his one-man war against the female gender. Those women he doesn't kill outright are punched, maimed and slugged with garbage cans. But apparently they deserve it-there isn't a single female character in the film who isn't a prostitute. [17 Nov 1989, p.A]
20
The New York Times
Vincent Canby
Harlem Nights is not the disaster some people might have been expecting. Mr. Murphy has appeared in far worse films written and directed by people much more experienced.
20
Chicago Reader
Jonathan Rosenbaum
The plot exposition gets laborious in spots, the period flavor is only occasional and approximate, and the direction tends to be clunky, yet the strong secondary cast helps to take up some of the slack.
20
Empire
Staff (Not Credited)
Self-serving, storyless tripe.
10
Time
Richard Schickel
The movie veers uneasily from not-funny comedy to not-persuasive melodrama. Murphy forgets that the dialogue in old-fashioned crime pictures was as highly stylized as the settings. In place of sharply polished wisecracks, he gives us the steady mutter of the witless, unfelt obscenities that are the argot of our modern mean streets. [27 Nov 1989, p.88]
10
Variety
Staff (Not Credited)
This blatantly excessive directorial debut for Eddie Murphy is overdone, too rarely funny and, worst of all, boring.
10
Washington Post
Desson Howe
Unfortunately, entertainer-for-life Murphy, directing for the first time, seems to have spent his energies on topping the bill rather than on the bill itself.
10
Washington Post
Hal Hinson
Eddie Murphy's directorial work is amateurish at best. And as a performer he looks as if he is in agony, as if his mother made him stand in front of the camera for punishment.
10
Los Angeles Times
Michael Wilmington
The movie is full of phallic gags about little-bitty guns and crude jokes at physical or emotional infirmities. [17 Nov 1989, p.6]
0
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Chris Dafoe
As it stands, Murphy has put his idols and friends in front of a camera, given them a watered down version of The Sting and hoped they'd make the best of it. They don't. [23 Nov 1989, p.C12]
 The average user rating for this movie is 8.6 (out of 10) based on 6 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
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