The Distinguished Gentleman (1992)

Starring Eddie Murphy, Lane Smith, Sherry Lee Ralph, Charles S. Dutton, Joe Don Baker, and Victor Rivers.

When Netflix scrapped their free plan in Kenya last year, I was at a loss, for I found myself in immediate need of a different watering hole to quench the thirsty film consumer within me.

I'm not proud of it, but I am a child of television. Indeed, some of the most vicious battles I fought in my early life each started off as a seemingly minor quarrel between siblings over the remote, and ended in full-on trench warfare. You see, back then, the TV timetable actually meant something, and your options were that you were sat for your show or you were sad that you missed it. Control over the remote was akin to being the ruler of a tiny island of entertainment.

The age of streaming and smartphones, however, has pushed the TV remote’s golden era of warmongering and kingmaking to an end, and now we all pretty much get to watch what we want when we want.

The TV Guide doesn’t mean shit nowadays and a huge part of that is due to us having a bit of Netflix in our pocketses.

Now, just like my fellow Kenyans living under the Hustler regime, times are tough for me economically and I had to do some small mathematics whether or not a Netflix subscription was viable at the moment.

Spoiler alert—It didn't take long, and I barely needed to exceed my simple arithmetic skills before it became painfully clear that I was gonna have to let this one go and run back to my baby YouTube, as well as my other illicit streaming mistresses.

So, on a warm Saturday afternoon, whilst browsing for a random movie to kill a couple of hours, the YouTube algorithm recommended The Distinguished Gentleman (1992).

I’m a simple man, and you know I was sold on this movie as soon as I saw Eddie Murphy’s grinning face on the thumbnail.

The Plot

The Distinguished Gentleman is an American political comedy that follows the misadventures of Thomas Jefferson Johnson (Eddie Murphy), a young charismatic conman from Florida who decides to run for Congress upon the death of a long-serving congressman, and banking solely on name-recognition to carry him through to victory.

Thomas Jefferson Johnson is the leader of an ensemble crew of con artists who run scams, targeting rich people in particular. In fact, the movie’s opening scene is a campaign rally hosted by Zeke Bridges (Noble Willingham) turned extortion when Miss Loretta (Sheryl Lee Ralph), Zeke's phone-sex hooker, shows up at the campaign event and demands payment or she'll out him to his wife for being so freaky on the phone. She even warns him that she’s got him dead to rights on tape saying some truly nasty sexually deviant things.

While the panicked Zeke is discreetly trying to get rid of Miss Loretta, Thomas (Eddie Murphy), who has been posing as a waiter at the party, joins the fray posing as an undercover cop there to assist. Moments Miss Loretta's hot-blooded Latino husband Armando (Victor Rivers) bursts in right on Thomas' cue that he would, and the scene descends into even more chaos.

Thomas manages to handcuff the couple of “gangsters” and quickly informs Zeke that he’s the victim of an extortion gang, and offers to mediate the matter for an amicable solution. Zeke is at this point desperate enough to ask Thomas to just get them whatever the hell they want so they can leave before his wife gets wind of the fracas. Thomas reluctantly agrees to take Zeke's $10k cash & Rolex to give to the scammers as ransom. Thomas promises Zeke he’ll handle the gang— assuring him that it would not be a problem anymore.

Zeke then discreetly lets the couple out, but holds Thomas hostage until he has assurances that the incriminating tape has been confiscated and destroyed.

Thomas, however, manages to slip through his net and escapes while Zeke is distracted by the police chief.

As he is hiding outside watching the coast before dashing off, Thomas overhears a life-changing conversation on the porch between a congressman named Jeff Johnson and a lobbyist/businessman, and this sets the wheels rolling in Thomas' head. Congress: that’s where the money is.

A few weeks later, congressman Jeff Johnson (James Graner) squeaks out one last hurrah into his secretary while working late at the office, and fortunately passes away.

Upon hearing this news, Thomas hatches a plan to run for Congress betting on name recognition alone—by dropping his first name Thomas, and truncating his middle name Jefferson to 'Jeff', to become "Jeff Johnson."

The plan works and congressman Jeff Johnson is elected into Congress.

Performances

Eddie Murphy, and indeed the entire cast, cover themselves in glory for their voice acting on The Distinguished Gentleman.

As con artists engaging in scamming horny rich men over the phone by pretending to be exotic hookers, Thomas and the crew do impressions of every accent from Honolulu honeys to Scandinavian blondes and everything in between. It’s honestly quite a marvel to watch these actors at work.

The chemistry between the crew is juuust right; with Thomas’ unbridled optimism counterbalanced with Miss Loretta’s charm and wit alongside Elijah’s nonchalance and Armando’s passion. This lineup for a sitcom would most certainly bang, and this is never clearer than in the hilarious scene on their first arrival to Washington DC.

My favourite part about the performances, however, is the fact that Eddie Murphy is always smiling. I also think Dick Dodge (Lane Smith) is an excellent depiction of the corrupt-asshole old-white-man political class, and I send a very big fuck you to all who identify as such.

Fuck Dick Dodge, his minions and their likenesses.

Wardrobe

My favourite thing about The Distinguished Gentleman is the cast’s outfits, plus the general lighting and colourfulness of the production. The movie features many well-placed contrasts between skin tones as well as between clothing. In particular, Miss Loretta and Thomas always got that shit on, especially after they make it to Congress.

Thomas is always well dressed, in a dapper suit and rocking arresting colourful ties. No dull shit, no thin lapels. Suave and poised, from the distinguished gentleman from Florida. Mheshimiwa.

The Name You Know

Thomas gambles on the fact that people usually vote for the name they know. His campaign is literally centred on the phrase "Jeff Johnson, the name you know," which was, crucially, the slogan of the dead congressman Jeff Johnson. Thomas is able to become the new representative from Florida because he took advantage of the fact that the general population are so removed from electoral politics that they usually just vote for whatever is most familiar—speaking to the pervasive political apathy among the people.

Word is that the elderly generally vote in greater proportions as compared to young people and The Distinguished Gentleman shows the importance of the elderly in polls because Thomas' greatest strength at the ballot is the silver foxes; a political association of the elderly. In addition to being more likely to go out to vote, the elderly are more likely to be conservative and vote the name they know.

Florida Man

It is always clear that Thomas is only attracted by the potentially lucrative nature of politics, as sparked by the conversation he overhead between Jeff and the lobbyist Olaf Andersen (Joe Don Baker).

Indeed, in one poignant scene, Elijah (Charles S. Dutton) gives an obvious yet enlightening anecdote: 

"Why you rob the bank?

Cause that’s where the money is."

Once elected to Congress, Thomas is simply banking on getting bought out by the lobbyists because it's a politician's job to be bought out, at least as far as he or any other congressman is concerned.

Congress is where the money is.

A congressman’s job is nought but getting re-elected, to be bought out by lobbyists. Rinse, repeat.

This is a chilling message delivered in a striking scene at the docks as Thomas announces his decision to run for office. As far as Thomas and the crew is concerned, this is just another con job albeit on a grander scale.

Sugoi Man

The Distinguished Gentleman is set in the 90’s U.S., but the brutally ruthless modus operandi of the political class is, unfortunately, seemingly timeless— create a racket, grab the wallet and bleed the coffers dry.

Even here, today, we have a President who is a self-proclaimed “hustler,” and who got into office by cheating, lying, and stealing, all with unrivalled steadfastness. Perhaps the only honest word he’s ever uttered, because he is a hustler, in the realest sense of the word.

Just like Thomas, with his foot barely over the threshold of the house on the hill, the man from Sugoi was dressed in the finest silks, wrapped in alligator skin, and draped in Italian tailoring. Nothing is too good for Sugoi Man as he gallivants around the world in Arab jets whilst wining and dining with the high and mighty on Wanjiku’s bill. Oh Bill, I wish you would foot your own goddamn bills.

And to top it all off, Sugoi Man, just like Thomas, got himself a nice white man Dick to show him around the corridors of power in DC, sending him on little imperialist errands like starving the kids, extorting their folks, and invading the neighbours.

Trips, trips?

Yes, Papa

Vaccines, vaccines?

No, Papa

Unlike Sugoi Man, however, Thomas does eventually develop a conscience whilst investigating the connection between electric companies, cancer in children and corruption in Congress. Sugoi Man could never.

Now, I know internet reception is certainly poor inside zionist Joe’s stinky old ass, but on the off chance that you’re reading this, Billy Boy, I hope you know you are a disgrace, a traitor, and an overall stinking piece of shit. You suck, fuck you.

Verdict

As a film, The Distinguished Gentleman is good without ever threatening to be great—sometimes just hovering on okay, but crucially never descending into the realm of awful.

The jokes are funny, the lighting is good, but the ending and the awfully constructed romance suck a bit off the lustre off the film.

Thematically, The Distinguished Gentleman is a gentle and comical yet apt portrayal of the house of cards that is any electoral political system under a hegemonic capitalist order which promotes unbridled private industry and spurs the emergence of lobby groups each keen on buying their own politician, much as one might sponsor a Formula One team; the only difference is that a Formula One team will proudly wear its sponsor’s colours on its livery but a congressman’s suit is freshly pressed and stained with nothing but the blood of the innocent.

This is what we get from capitalism: from apathetic voters, to greedy opportunistic unscrupulous politicians, to powerbrokers and entrenched grand corruption, all surrounded by a sea of poverty, suffering, and death.

The Distinguished Gentleman seems to say, “the democratic system as we know it is all a farce,” and I am inclined to agree.

Ultimately, The Distinguished Gentleman reminds us that as long as we let politicians answer to private industry and lobbyists rather than to the electorate, we are well and truly fucked.

It’s a con game and we, the people, are the mark.

Rating: 6/10

~D