Cast:
Robert Townsend (Bobby Taylor), Anne-Marie Johnson (Lydia), Craigus R. Johnson (Stevie Taylor), Helen Martin (Bobby's Grandmother), Starletta DuPois (Bobby's Mother), David McKnight (Uncle Ray), Keenen Ivory Wayans (Donald), Lou B. Washington (Tiny), Brad Sanders (B. B. Sanders/Batty Boy), John Witherspoon (Mr. Jones), Eugene Robert Glazer (Director), Lisa Mende (Casting Director), and Dom Irrera (Writer) Directed by Robert Townsend (#1315 - Eddie Murphy Raw)
Review:
There is always enough time to do a movie where with an actor-star double threat, and this time is no different here. Born in Chicago, Robert Townsend found an interest in acting as a teenager, even in the face of studying at Illinois State University, as he found that his passion for acting, whether in workshops, standup, or appearances in movies such as Cooley High [1975] and A Soldier's Story [1984]. Incidentally, Townsend auditioned for Saturday Night Live in 1980 only to be passed over for Eddie Murphy. When it came to this movie, Townsend shifted interest into directing by the early 1980s and he would bring the help of Keenan Ivory Wayans (who he had known for a handful of years) into writing the film together, which was funded by a row of pre-approved credit card applications. The movie was shot over the course of nearly two years (while actually only having filming done in fourteen days) because Townsend had to make sure the budget would not go under by going on tour with his standup routines. As it turned out, the scene in the film involving looking for “Eddie Murphy-type,” was so amusing to Murphy that when he saw the movie, he asked for Townsend to direct the concert film Eddie Murphy Raw, which was released a few months after Shuffle. In his career, Townsend has directed seven theatrical films to go along with occasional acting roles and work in television, as highlighted by works such as The Five Heartbeats and The Parent 'Hood.
Technically the movie could be thought of as a sketch movie, because there are a handful of vignettes dedicated to making light of certain experiences and viewpoints, whether that involves a "Black Acting School" or, well, making light of Siskel & Ebert with "Sneaking into the Movies". One finds a clear passion by Townsend in poking at people who seem to believe that people have look and act a certain type of way just to even be considered for movies, right down to having a character even remark that it isn't about the art for them but the "sequel". It stings to see the depths people will go in treating people as cogs to throw in and out on a whim and asks the question of what it takes to "play the game" when it really is a matter of one's soul on the selling line. Sure, it comes and goes in getting its target down with bite to match, but it manages to hold together for 78 minutes with pretty game people for those bits spent in mockery, such as the vignette about a private eye is particularly funny to play with the cliches in sharp energy. Others come and go in varying levels of interest, whether that involves the interludes spent in dead-end nature with Witherspoon/Wayans/Washington or the sharp seasonable presence in Martin or most significantly, the one-scene wonder with the helpful McKnight. I like the last sequences in showing a key message not merely by preaching to the pulpit but by just showing how it looks to people around them (and one callback about making a honest living). Life will crush you down regardless of one's race, but that doesn't mean you have to let your dream pass you by. In that sense, Hollywood Shuffle has relevant chuckles at the expense of an industry that likes to pigeon-hole people in a certain way that can only be remedied by looking at the options laid in front of them and moving forward on one's own path. In short: it is a biting movie with a good deal of laughs.
Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.
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