Entertainment
Raunchy 2000s Comedy Is Rude, Crude, And Over-The-Top
By Robert Scucci
| Published
Eddie Murphy is no stranger to portraying several characters in a single movie. He proved the concept in 1988’s Coming to America and perfected the process with 1996’s The Nutty Professor. Always willing to go the extra mile to land a laugh, Murphy became a man of many faces, something his legacy will always be celebrated for. That is, of course, if you’ve never seen 2007’s Norbit, a film in which he plays the titular character, his morbidly obese and abusive wife Rasputia Latimore, and his Chinese father figure, Mr. Hangten Wong.
Leaning into every racial stereotype imaginable to generate humor, Norbit feels like a warped mirror of the wholesome yet rough-around-the-edges Klump family in The Nutty Professor films. As much as I wanted to give this comedy a fair shake, the humor was lost on me because there are only so many times you can land the “fat lady screaming and falling” gag before it wears out its welcome.
A Man Of Many Faces
When we first meet Norbit, he’s an orphaned child played by Khamani Griffin, Austin Reid, and Jonathan Robinson, depending on his age. He’s hopelessly in love with Kate Thomas (Thandiwe Newton), another orphan who lives at Mr. Hangten Wong’s home until she moves away from Boiling Springs, Tennessee when she’s five years old. Left behind and looking for love in all the wrong places, Norbit eventually meets Rasputia. The two grow up together, and he marries her despite the red flags waving in the wind. Rasputia is morbidly obese, endlessly angry, abusive, sadistic, and every other unwholesome adjective you can pull out of a hat.
Her three intimidating brothers, Big Black Jack (Terry Crews), Blue (Lester Speight), and Earl (Clifton Powell), hire Norbit as a bookkeeper to keep him under their thumb. Any perceived slight or hint of impropriety results in consequences, and since Norbit is a pushover, those consequences stack up fast.
When Kate returns to town to buy Wong’s orphanage, she reconnects with Norbit, which sends Rasputia into a spiral. Still hung up on his first love, Norbit is crushed to learn Kate is about to marry Deion Hughes (Cuba Gooding Jr.). Deion, however, has no interest in preserving the orphanage. With help from the Latimore brothers, he plans to convert it into a strip club, and they all realize Norbit is the perfect pawn to get Kate to sign the necessary paperwork.
Too Much Shtick To Shake A Stick At
Norbit suffers from its nonstop willingness to go over the top without serving the story. One recurring gag involves Rasputia’s gut and breasts blaring the car horn whenever she sits down, only for her to blame Norbit for adjusting the seats. That’s the level of humor you’re getting here. She goes down a waterslide and creates a tidal wave, pops a bounce house after launching children into the air, and breaks beds whenever she and Norbit engage in the horizontal shuffle. Fat jokes are the primary vehicle for comedy, along with Mr. Wong’s habit of using whaling weapons as a means of self defense.
Unlike The Nutty Professor, which boasts a similar sense of humor, Norbit loses points for punching down instead of laterally or up. The Klump family is overweight and incredibly unwholesome at times, but they’re goodhearted, misguided people who genuinely love their son. Their dinner table scenes come from a place of warmth. Norbit uses that same structure to bully its characters and lean on stereotypes for shock value. Worse, we’ve seen these jokes before, which dulls their impact. Chris Farley perfected the “fat guy falling down” gag long before this, and in this context, it feels like Murphy showed up late to the party.
Would Have Worked Better As A Skit
In its attempt to fire off as many jokes as possible per minute, Norbit becomes an endurance test. Some jokes land, but most feel hack and shoehorned in rather than a natural extension of the screenplay. Giving credit where it’s due, I still respect Eddie Murphy for fully committing to the bit. I genuinely didn’t realize he played Mr. Wong until I checked the credits, which speaks to his voice acting skill and knack for physical comedy.
I can’t in good conscience say that Norbit is a good movie. If anything, it barely aspires to be a movie. As a short film or string of skits, it might have worked. As a feature-length project, the premise wears thin almost immediately, leaving you wondering who this movie is supposed to be for.
Norbit is streaming on Tubi.
