Life Details

It's sad to see Eddie Murphy so completely unfunny in this cross between The Shawshank Redemption and The Odd Couple. Street-smart Eddie and bank clerk Martin Lawrence are framed by a Deep South sheriff for murder, and sent to a Mississippi jail for life. Initially racist and brutal, the regime lightens up when warden Ned Beatty takes over and makes the pair his house servants. The necessary chemistry between chalk-and-cheese Murphy and Lawrence is absent, so their banter is simply unpleasant rather than hilarious, while the prison comes across as a holiday camp housing whimsical toughies. It's a situation that's strangely lacking in tension and, indeed, regimentation. And, like the film, it's certainly without humour.

Amiable prison variation on The Odd Couple, which gets by on the interplay between its two stars, though reality never intrudes.