This is the worst movie with Eddie Murphy that I sat through. There are funny parts(i.e his fight with Della Reese of Touched By An Angel ) but overall this is awful. Once out of curiosity I counted every curse words. There were 130 F words and 66 S-words, among other words. Eddie Murphy seemed to care more about that then the story. No wonder he had to be the director of the movie! Don't watch this! And people pick on NORBIT of all of his movies!

Putting Eddie Murphy, Richard Pryor and Redd Foxx in the same movie clearly wasn't a bad idea. Instead, the bad idea came in the form of Murphy deciding he could write, direct and produce that movie.Everyone in this film felt like they were wasting their talent. There's something about Della Reese saying "kiss my ass" for the twentieth time that makes it not funny anymore.As for the plot, its dramatic and comedic parts conflict with each other, as if Murphy got the script to a really bad mafia movie and then decided to put some lousy jokes in it.The movie should have been subtitled "Three Iconic Black Comedians Get Outclassed by Arsenio Hall Crying and Screaming for Five Minutes."

It's 1938 Harlem. Sugar Ray (Richard Pryor) owns the Club Sugar Ray. Vernest 'Quick' Brown (Eddie Murphy) is his longtime loyal protégé who runs the club. It's extremely successful and therefore comes to gangster Bugsy's radar. Bugsy sends his corrupt cop crony played by Danny Aiello.Eddie Murphy writes/directs/stars in this movie with comedic icons Richard Pryor, Redd Foxx among others. It's too bad that this is filled with sad unfunny stereotypes. We have this group of massive comedic talents but they can't pull it off despite seeming to have a good time together. None of it is helped by the laughably simplistic scheme at the end. The fact that this tremendous group of talent was wasted is all the more reason why this is so disappointing.

After about nearly 25 years of mostly hearing negative comments about this movie, I finally watched Harlem Nights on Netflix Streaming. My verdict: I thought it was funny enough even with all the killings, bombings, and other things considered too ugly for a comedy. Executive producer, director, writer, and star Eddie Murphy has made a pretty good period piece taking place in '30s Harlem and assembled what must have been a dream cast for him starting with his idol Richard Pryor, and then adding other legends like Redd Foxx and Della Reese. Together they run Club Sugar Ray with Pryor playing that club's owner, Murphy as adopted son Quick, Foxx as nearly blind Bennie Wilson, and Reese as madam Vera. Their enemies are such white figures like officer Phil Cantone (Danny Aiello) and gangster Bugsy Calhoune (Michael Lerner). In addition to them, other supporting players include Belinda Tolbert-best known as Jenny Willis Jefferson on "The Jeffersons"-as Sugar Ray's mistress Annie, Stan Shaw-like me, a Chicago native-as boxer Jack Jenkins (who has an amusing stutter), Jasmine Guy-who was playing Whitley Gilbert on "A Different World" at the time-as creole lady Dominque La Rue (whose character is from the state I now live in-Louisiana), Vic Polizos as Richie Vento, Lela Rochon-years before appearing in the blockbuster Waiting to Exhale-as Sunshine, Thomas Mikal Ford as Tommy Smalls, and Arsenio Hall as his brother though he's credited as Crying Man (and he's quite hilarious doing so!). Like I said, I thought the lines were funny enough and the profanities weren't as frequent as I thought but since I'm so used to these performers using them, I really didn't feel offended by them. So on that note, Harlem Nights gets a recommendation from me. P.S. Aiello's son Rick-who I found out also appeared with his father in Do the Right Thing as one of New York's finest-plays someone credited as only Man # 1 here. And how awesome to hear many Duke Ellington songs including the credit-ending "Drop Me Off in Harlem" with New Orleans' own Louis Armstrong.