Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
Mike Epps, Richard Pryor Jr. and others recount the culture-defining influence of Richard Pryor - one of America's most brilliant, iconic comic minds.
A solid documentary portrait of Richard Pryor that benefits enormously from its subject's singular life and comedy legacy. The testimonials from Mike Epps, Pryor Jr., and other comics effectively convey his cultural impact and raw genius. However, the film follows fairly conventional documentary structure — talking heads, archival footage, chronological biography — without pushing the form in particularly inventive ways. Cinematography is standard for the genre, nothing visually distinctive. The ending, dealing with his MS and decline, is poignant but handled predictably. Novelty gets a modest bump because Pryor himself is so irreducible a figure that any honest portrait carries some of his distinctiveness by proxy, but the filmmaking craft itself is functional rather than exceptional.