These perspectives (particularly Turan’s) prompted both Hudlin and Murphy to pen op-eds for the Los Angeles Times in response. Although he noted that a film of this scale focusing on the lives of successful Black people was “very long overdue,” he also argued that the execution “feels in its own way as silly and arbitrary as mainstream movies without any people of color on the screen.”
In a review for The New York Times, the critic Janet Maslin described the cosmetic company Marcus, Jacqueline, and Angela work for as an “improbably glamorous corporate universe” and later said the film “pays no attention to social reality.” In a more incendiary (particularly regarding all things Murphy-related) review for the Los Angeles Times, the critic Kenneth Turan claimed that Boomerang’s racial makeup was its most compelling feature. The Thanksgiving scene, in which John Witherspoon and Bebe Drake shine as the uptight Gerard’s (David Alan Grier) boisterous parents, is not only one of Boomerang’s funniest scenes, it’s also one of its best.īoomerang is a success by essentially every measure, yet some critics at papers of record said the quiet part rather loudly by suggesting that the lack of white characters in significant roles was fantasy. Beyond the numbers, Boomerang lives on as one of the all-time great romantic comedies because of its rhythm and style. It became one of the top 20 highest-grossing films of the year domestically and went on to make more than $130 million globally. Boomerang’s premiere was an event held at Grauman’s Chinese Theatre along the Hollywood Walk of Fame, drawing a who’s who of Black Hollywood circa 1992, from Denzel Washington to then–rising comic Jamie Foxx. Berry had just made her film debut in Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever the previous year, and followed it up with roles in Strictly Business and The Last Boy Scout. What’s more, Boomerang featured an almost exclusively Black cast of cross-generational talent, including royalty like Eartha Kitt and Melvin Van Peebles and on-the-brink stars like Berry and Martin Lawrence.
Reid that featured one of the biggest songs of the ’90s in Boyz ll Men’s “End of the Road” and introduced the world to Toni Braxton via music pulled straight from the story’s marrow, exhibited how Boomerang’s many moving parts hit the mark.) (Even the soundtrack, a heat check from Babyface and L.A. Boomerang was also seen as a course correction for Murphy following the icy critical response to 1989’s Harlem Nights and 1990’s Another 48 Hrs. films, raunchy comedy specials Eddie Murphy: Delirious and Eddie Murphy: Raw, and the singular achievement of Coming to America.
BOOMERANG SOUNDTRACK MOVIE
And as a romantic comedy, it was uncharted territory for Murphy, who built his movie stardom in the previous decade through the fish-out-of-water comedy Trading Places, buddy-cop vehicles like the Beverly Hills Cop and 48 Hrs. It was director Reginald Hudlin’s highly anticipated follow-up to House Party. Its $42 million budget was the largest for any Black film at the time.
Boomerang was a landmark moment for the expansion of Black cinema during the early 1990s. However, witnessing a man self-destruct because he can’t reap what he sowed isn’t the extent of why Boomerang is exceptional.
In typical fashion, Marcus can’t handle being treated as he treats women, so he gravitates toward another new colleague, the less imposing Angela (Halle Berry), creating a highly flammable love triangle.
BOOMERANG SOUNDTRACK PROFESSIONAL
It was considered subversive for dropping audiences into the world of Marcus, an arrogant womanizer draped in Thierry Mugler, then inverting that world through the introduction of Jacqueline (Robin Givens), who eclipses him in both professional status and ruthlessness with the opposite sex. But for the people who work there, it’s just business as usual.īoomerang was somewhat anomalous when it was released 30 years ago today. It’s clear that he loves everything about the position he occupies in the world, including having a secretary who can facilitate the delivery of a single long-stem rose to several women along with a card reading: “ Thinking only of you.” The fact that everyone in the office is Black stands out only if you’re looking for it or troubled by it. He greets damn near every woman with that smile and bedroom eyes before sliding into his spacious, modernist office. Once those elevator doors part, it’s game on for ad exec Marcus Graham (Eddie Murphy), who flashes a self-assured smile and glides through an office building, brimming with confidence the whole way. There’s no grand statement in the opening scene of Boomerang, but it still says plenty about the film’s world.
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