Shocked when I saw the critics' consensus

21% on Rotten Tomatoes!!??????? WOW! I honestly can't believe that. I would have thought it would be 70 some percent. It's not in my top 10 favorite comedies, but probably top 25. I think it deserves an 8.

So why did they hate it so much? I have a few theories. For one, it appears to be heavily derivative of The Cotton Club and The Sting. I haven't seen those movies, so I won't doubt it. They were very successful movies and as such it wouldn't surprise me if every single one of those reviewers watched them. I understand trashing a movie for stealing, as it's definitely a pretty bad sin. But this hard?

The complaint that it "wasn't funny". Utter nonsense. I even read a review that included Redd Foxx in that accusation. If they were expecting more laughs from Pryor and Murphy, that's one thing. But if you didn't laugh, hard, at Foxx a minimum of 5 times, you have definitely got serious mental deficiencies.

Expecting more from Pryor and Murphy. I sort of get that. Pryor is one of the funniest humans who ever lived, Murphy was a tour de force of comedy throughout the decade, and between their characters, there were only a few attempts at comedic deliveries. So the expectations were high. But isn't that somewhat childish to expect one direction because you've gotten used to it and be upset when it goes another way? Other actors filled out the movie with laughs allowing Murphy and Pryor to focus on driving the story: Foxx and Della Reese absolutely killed it, and crying Arsenio was classic.

The Bloody Gate, The Bloody Hound, Evidently Chickentown.