I Know and Old Bitch Named Della Hit Harder Than You

Life is a 1999 comedy-drama motion-picture show directed past Ted Demme, starring Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence.

In 1932 New York City, Claude Banks (Lawrence) gets caught upwards in a bootlegging scheme later a fateful run in with no-good Ray Gibson (Irish potato). While making the sale in the Deep South, the boys get involved in a crooked game of cards and end up framed for the murder of the local carte sharp. Sentenced to life, their friendship is forged by proximity and the dream of escape.

At first glance, information technology appears to be a normal Eddie Murphy or Martin Lawrence screwball comedy, but information technology really has surprising Subconscious Depths equally it follows several decades of the main characters' unlikely friendship, fitting it firmly in the Dramedy territory.

Ned Beatty (as a kindly prison official), Anthony Anderson (every bit the prisoner who does the cooking), Bernie Mac (as a prisoner who practices Situational Sexuality), and R. Lee Ermey (as the Big Bad after a few Fourth dimension Skip'southward) too appear.

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This moving picture provides examples of:

• Really Pretty Funny: Fifty-fifty the Sergeant and Hoppin' Bob take a hearty express joy when all the men in military camp claim to accept fathered a baby with the Superintendant's daughter.
• The Alcatraz: As they enter the prison house yard, Ray and Claude are told past Sergeant Dillard that Parchman Farm prison has no fences, because any prisoner crossing the gun line volition be taken down by a sharpshooter.
• Alone in a Crowd: When Claude is left alone at the bus station, he looks around at the exterior world. It's his first fourth dimension seeing it in forty years. He looks utterly lost and and then catches his own wrinkled reflection in a car window.
• Ambiguous Situation: It'south unclear if several of Ray and Claude's friends, such as Cookie, jangle Leg and Hoppin' Bob died or were released during the Time Skip.
• American Accents: Over the course of the film, Ray and Claude lose their New York accents and pick upward southern accents as a result of a lifetime in the South.
• Asshole Victim: Sheriff Pike killed Winston Hancock and framed Ray and Claude for his murder, and he took Ray's father's watch that Hancock gambled off him, to boot. Needless to say, no tears are shed when Superintendent Abernathy shoots him subsequently hearing that he framed the 2 convicts, correct when he was about to shoot them whilst Ray and Claude were fighting over which of them should shoot him.
• Benevolent Dominate: Superintendent Wilkins (Ned Beatty) treats both Ray and, especially Claude with respect and relative amiability. He fifty-fifty covers for them subsequently killing Freeway upon learning they truly were framed for Hancock's murder and was going to draw up their pardon papers. Sadly, he suffers a fatal heart assail before doing so.
• Berserk Button: "White-Only Pies". Too making a wisecrack about Ray'southward father and his lookout man is this for Ray.
• Improve to Die than Be Killed: Biscuit commits suicide by deliberately running over the gun line in order to be shot by 1 of the trustees. The reason why is because he didn't want to get home to his mother a gay homo. Truth in Television equally being homosexual during that time was heavily frowned upon.
• Big Bad: Sheriff Pike, the closest affair to one the film has. Information technology was he who framed our ii leads and put them in prison for life.
• Bloodshot Ending: Claude and Ray spend their whole lives locked away for a law-breaking they never committed. By the time they finally pull off a successful escape, they're both former men living in the modern world, last seen at a Yankee game. Still the catastrophe treats this in a positive light.
• Bluff the Imposter: Claude pulls this when Ray tries to pickpocket him posing as an erstwhile friend from high school by verifying if he attended Jefferson Loftier and not "Monroe".
• Bookends: Ray and Claude's funeral ...or so information technology seemed.
• The Cameo: Rick James plays a 1930'due south gangster named "Spanky" and rapper Heavy D is a Present Day inmate.
• Army camp Gay: Beige.
• Can't Get Away with Nuthin': Winston Hancock successfully deprives Ray of his money and his father's lookout in a rigged gambling match. He doesn't get to return home with his winnings, though, because Sheriff Pike confronts him in the street and ultimately kills him.
• Category Traitor: Hoppin' Bob is a prisoner, only is a trustee working with the guards, who even entrust him with a gun.
• Chocolate Baby: The Superintendent's daughter gives birth to a very obviously not white kid. This leads to a hilarious scene where the Superintendent lines the prisoners up and compares the infant to each of them, trying to root out the father.
• Covers Always Lie: The poster for this film shows Spud and Lawrence sandwiched between two very big inmates who plain have a fiddling chip o'prison rape on their minds. These two inmates, Jangle Leg and Gold Oral fissure, exercise announced in the film, but apart from making a laissez passer at Ray and being politely rebuffed, Jangle Leg never rapes anyone (indeed, he'southward in a consensual relationship with Biscuit), and Aureate Oral fissure is not a rapist: he's but a bully.
• Credits Gag: A bloopers reel is shown during the credits. The best of which is White potato'south crack during the picket scene: "Hey, this ain't my daddy'due south scout!"
• Adjourn-Stomp Battle: Ray vs. Gilt Mouth in the m, right afterward Ray stands up to Golden Oral fissure and refuses to allow him bully another prisoner out of his corn staff of life. Since Ray is a con artist more than used to talking his fashion out of fights than actually engaging in them, and Gold Mouth is a massive pugilist, Ray only gets 2 skilful blows in before Gold Mouth wipes the floor with him.
• Daddy's Little Villain: When punishing Ray and Claude later on a would be escape, the superintendent asks Little Mae Rose what she thinks he should exercise with them. She considers for a moment, and so sentences them to a nighttime in The Hole (her daddy extends it to a week).
• Dashedplot Line: The story flashbacks to 1932, before skipping to 1944, and so 1972, so finally catching upwards to 1997 where the picture started.
• Defiant to the Stop: Sheriff Pike and his deputies take Winston Hancock at his mercy for not leaving town. Hancock, instead of begging for them to let him go, makes a wisecrack about sleeping with the Sheriff'southward wife, which gets him knocked down to the ground. He uses a switchblade to piece Freeway's face, giving him a permanent scar.

• Deep S: Even though they are blackness men in the early 1930s, Claude is shocked to see the differences in their treatment when they get out New York and caput South.
• Deus Malaise Machina: Parodied, when ane of the inmates gets Ray to read a alphabetic character for him that he's had for years only couldn't read, information technology basically contains a long list of things that have gone incorrect for his family. He nonetheless thanks Ray for reading information technology anyway.
• Driven to Suicide: Unable to cope with the idea of living on the outside, Biscuit commits suicide by running across the gun line.
  • Ray'southward father gave up hope and allegedly hung himself in prison.
• Enemy Eats Your Lunch: When Claude and Ray arrive in prison, Gold Oral cavity tries to take their cornbread, causing Ray to assert himself by refusing and get into a fight over information technology.

  Cookie: I appreciate yous going through all the trouble over my cornbread; you don't get a lot of compliments around here.

• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Gilded Mouth, the prison house slap-up, has a son who's every bit fat and baldheaded as he is, who he happily reunites with on a visit day.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": We never hear near of the inmates' real names. Instead they are introduced by their prison names: Beige, Jangle Leg, Cookie, etc. No one always even knows Can't Become Correct's real name, equally he can't speak to innovate himself.
• Everything Makes a Mushroom: Ray's try to escape in the crop duster ends this way. Amazingly, he'south shown existence shoved into The Hole with no injuries other than a hilarious covering of soot.
• Evil Gloating: While at gunpoint, Sheriff Pike not merely admits that he is the one who killed Winston Hancock, he also takes pleasure in the fact that Ray and Claude spent the last 40 years doing cheap labor for his law-breaking.
• Faking the Dead: How Ray and Claude escape.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Ray and Claude hate each other until they have to spend decades in each other'southward visitor.
• Fish out of Temporal H2o: At the motorbus station Claude briefly considers running, but when he looks around and realizes how much the world has changed, he sits back down in the car and waits for the superintendent to render.
• Foregone Determination: As established past the opening scene, Ray and Claude die in prison. Or did they?
• Good Is Not Nice: Dilliard and Hoppin' Bob are rather harsh just deep down, they genuinely treat the inmates, especially the main crew. This is most axiomatic when Biscuit commits suicide by running across the line. Hoppin' Bob has a clear shot to kill him but he's visibly anxious and refrains from doing then. When another guard makes the killing shot, Hoppin' Bob is genuinely horrified. Dilliard is then seen sadly watching from afar. Years later, Dilliard regretfully tells Claude and Ray that they are being transferred to work at the superintendent's mansion and clearly lies almost not missing then when they get out. He'southward even shut to tears when he tells him.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Ray and Claude somewhen become these.
• Promise Spot: When the new superintendent Dexter Wilkins finds out Ray and Claude are innocent, he immediately moves to write their pardon - right after he gets out of the restroom. Unfortunately, the stress of the day's events causes a heart attack and he dies without drawing up the papers or telling a soul.
  • Earlier, Ray and Claude are in talks with a Negro Baseball League recruiter to help them get out of prison house past acting as Can't Get Correct's handlers. While mourning the death of Biscuit, Can't Get Right gets his parole papers, and the amanuensis tells Claude and Ray he tried to secure their freedom but couldn't.
• I Am Spartacus: The entire campsite claims fathership of Mae Rose's child to save Can't Become Right.
• Imagine Spot: The inmates collectively have one when Ray talks almost his dream of owning his nightclub, "Ray'southward Babel Room".
  • Biscuit fantasizes himself as The Chanteuse.
• Innocently Insensitive: Warden Wilkins talks about his upcoming retirement in front end of Claude (who is serving life in prison). TO his credit, Wilkins chop-chop realizes this and apologizes to him.
• Inspirationally Disadvantaged: Can't Go Right is patently very simple and never speaks. However, his potential major-league baseball skills earn him a full pardon and he manages to have an matter with Superintendent Abernathy's daughter, fifty-fifty fathering a child with her.
• I Never Said It Was Poison: Willie never said Ray and Claude didn't succeed in their escape plan.
• Lyrical Dissonance: The closing scene is intended to exist highly uplifting and spotlight Ray and Claude's friendship and freedom. Yet, the song chosen was "What Would You lot Do" by City High, which is nigh a woman explaining her reasons for condign a hooker. The song was obviously but chosen for the single chorus line "Just for me this is what I call life."
• Make It Look Similar an Accident: The new superintendent explains to the law that the shooting was a Dick Cheney-way hunting accident when actually he shot and killed Sheriff Pike after learning of Ray and Claude's innocence.
• Not Worth Killing: Hoppin' Bob hesitates to shoot Biscuit when he deliberately runs across the gun line, although he has a clear shot. Sadly, another guard kills him.
• Odd Couple: Straitlaced Claude and lilliputian thief Ray.
• The Old Captive: Claude and Ray go this over decades of incarceration. Too Willie equally well.
• Orphan'south Plot Trinket: Ray's watch, given to him by his deceased male parent who hung himself in prison.
• Reasonable Authority Effigy:
  • Wilkins the new superintendent is an affable man who is fairly polite to his trustees (Claude and Ray), doesn't seem to abuse his ability and sides with Claude and Ray against Pike and would take had them pardoned after learning of their innocence if he'd lived long plenty.
  • Sergeant Dillard, arguably. He'due south a guard who takes keeping his prisoners from escaping seriously, merely is also willing to cut them some slack at times.
  • Downplayed with the baseball league official who gets out Can't Get Correct as a player and does make an effort to secure a release for Claude and Ray and is somewhat apologetic when he can't.
• Pet the Dog: Sergeant Dillard selling Claude and his girlfriend a 'temporary marriage license" to brand them eligible for a conjugal visit the one fourth dimension she visits him.
• Punishment Box: Prisoners are punished with time in "The Hole," which is an outhouse sized shed with no calorie-free or plumbing out in the sun in the South.
• Red Right Mitt: Claude recognizes the real murderer, Sheriff Pike, by his accent and the scar beyond his cheek.
• Sand In My Optics: After hearing Ray and Claude's story, one of the immature inmates claims his tears are from "allergies".
• Scary Black Man: Granted, all the prisoners are black- in the 1930'due south, anyhow. The prison becomes less segregated in the modern day- but Goldmouth, the local corking, fits this trope, every bit the tallest and most heavyset of the lot. His kickoff scene ends with him challenging Ray to a fight after failing to bully Claude into giving upward his cornbread.
• She's All Grown Up: Little Mae Rose, Superintendent Abernathy's daughter is introduced equally an boyish and is fairly coy and pretty as an adult after the Time Skip.
• Signature Item Inkling: Gibson sees his father's heirloom pocket watch—the one he lost to the card shark he was convicted of murdering—in the possession of the deputy who arrested him for the murder, and puts 2 and two together.
• Situational Sexuality: Beige and Jangle Leg are together. Nevertheless, Jangle Leg prefers women when he can get to them such as the party scene and his comment most Claude's hand being soft like a woman's.
• Starts with Their Funeral: Subverted at the very cease when we learn Ray and Claude faked their deaths to finally escape prison house.
• Starter Villain: Spanky Johnson, the gangster who sends Ray and Claude to the Southward to choice up booze for him to pay off their debts, thus setting the scene for them getting arrested.
• Suicide by Cop: Beige's demise.
• Time-Compression Montage: After closely following their first 12 years of incarceration, the film skips to the mid 70s via a montage of historical events and images of the other inmates fading as they either died or were released.
• Three-Month-Old Newborn: When the superintendent lines the convicts upwardly to compare the infant to them, it should be the day after its birth. The baby is wide-eyed, holding its head up on its own, and working its hands. It'south clearly at least three-5 months onetime. ^note Although it is possible that the scene took place some time after the babe's birth specifically for that reason.
• Title Drop: All over since it's a mutual, i-syllable word, just notably when the judge sentences Ray and Claude to "LIFE" imprisonment.
• Truthful Companions: The inmates form an odd family of sorts.
• The Voiceless: Can't Get Right has no dialogue. It'due south unclear if he can't speak or just chooses not to.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: The principal coiffure of inmates are these, but Ray and Claude epitomize this trope after 60+ years together.
• "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: Ray Gibson and Claude Banks now alive in Harlem...Together.
• Where da White Women At?: Can't Get Right can't keep his eyes off of Mae Rose. Ray and Claude continually try to warn him what kind of problem this could get him in.
• Working on the Chain Gang: Claude and Ray are sentenced to piece of work on a concatenation gang later beingness wrongfully convicted of a crime they didn't commit.
• You Fight Similar a Cow: Ray, after being on the receiving end of a Curb-Stomp Battle from Goldmouth, taunts him "I know a bitch named Della hit harder than you lot." He nonetheless loses.
  • Della stands for Della Reese who'southward character got into with Eddie's grapheme in Harlem Nights and who Eddie as well lost a fight too in a i-sided affair.
• Zany Scheme: Ray's constant escape plots.

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Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/Life1999

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