The first half of the film follows Moore in his career as a musician and stand-up comedian, crafting his Dolemite persona (essentially, a nattily dressed gangster who’s fond of rhyming insults) and building up a local following by selling records out of the trunk of his car. Murphy keeps Moore’s spirits high, even as the character flounders, laying the emotional groundwork for a man who chased an audience even when nothing seemed to be on the horizon. Moore’s belief in himself is crystallized when he goes to see the 1974 film The Front Page (starring Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon); while his friends look on in disbelief at a comedy they find utterly mirthless, Moore can’t stop gazing at the projection light, trying to imagine a way to get himself onto the big screen.

He finds a way with Dolemite, a rickety, independently financed quasi-comedy directed by the preening D’Urville Martin (Wesley Snipes) and written by the lofty playwright Jerry Jones (Keegan-Michael Key). The real 1975 film, which brought Moore to a national audience, arrived a few years into the blaxploitation movement started by movies such as Sweet Sweetback’s Baadasssss Song and Shaft. Dolemite was made on an even smaller scale than those projects and became a word-of-mouth sensation, mixing kung-fu action, absurd gunplay, and over-the-top sex scenes into one crowd-pleasing package with an admirably cheap sense of cheerfulness.

It’s the kind of so-bad-it’s-good cult object that occasionally used to succeed outside the studio system, and the second half of Brewer’s film depicts its wild production as a goofy shambles. Like The Disaster Artist, this sequence is an anarchic ode to amateur moviemaking, surfacing every wild tale about Moore’s skill at cutting corners and winning people over to a seemingly lost cause. Many movie fans won’t know about this story, and Murphy’s passion helps sell the vitality of what Moore and his team created, even if the real-life product was ultimately a little lacking in quality.

Dolemite Is My Name was made by Netflix and will launch on the streaming service later this month. But the film is worth seeing during its limited theatrical run. It’s the kind of comedy that plays well with a big, lively audience, packed as it is with jokes and featuring a sterling ensemble that also includes appearances from Mike Epps, Snoop Dogg, Chris Rock, and Tituss Burgess. While Steve Martin’s Bowfinger (1999) remains the best movie Murphy has ever made about indie filmmaking in Hollywood, Dolemite Is My Name is only slightly less ridiculous and goes down just as smoothly. It’s a delightful shot of enthusiasm that, audiences can hope, will open a new chapter in Murphy’s career.

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