Chapter Three

By RICHARD CORLISS

RICHARD PRYOR HERE AND NOW

Directed and Written by Richard Pryor

Call it Richard Pryor Born Again. Not that this coruscating comic actor has seen the heavenly light, renounced his steady diet of high-sodium ghetto talk that would singe the ears of maiden aunts and Marine sergeants alike, and cutified himself into Nipsey Russell. Au contraire, as they say in the French Quarter of New Orleans, where this third chapter in Pryor's scarifyingly frank autobiography was shot. The man is still baaad as ever, effortlessly libeling ex-wives (make that all women), Ronald Reagan (make that most white folks) and a tiny racing crab that managed to scamper onstage. But after replaying his heart attack in Live in Concert (1979) and building a hilarious routine out of his near fatal experiment free-basing heroin in Live on the Sunset Strip (1982), Pryor is here to tell you he has been off alcohol and hard drugs for seven months. Given his hell-bent lifestyle, that amounts to total conversion.

This may not seem front-page news, except on the Star; it is a most unpromising premise for an 80-minute monologue. But Pryor deals in shock therapy, self-applied. He exorcises his demons by turning them into imps from the underworld. And so he gives his impression of Old Richard emerging from the utopia of inebriation to "wake up in a car drivin' 90" and then wallpaper his bathroom with last night's dinner. His enactment of a heroin addict killing himself with a fix is no joke; it is a flat-out, Oscar-time horror show. Pryor starts out showboating: "They say, 'You goin' to hell.' I say, 'I been there. Had so much fun they kicked me out.' " But by the end he is supine on the stage, simulating death throes so graphically it could scare any street kid straight.

All of Pryor's jokes are impudent, but not all are fresh. A routine about visiting Africa is recycled from Live on the Sunset Strip; the warmup baiting of the audience was done in Live in Concert; the junkie serenade recalls Pryor's role in his 1973 melodrama Some Call It Loving. It can also be tough to maintain your underdog snarl when you've just signed a movie contract worth $40 million. (This is a pose Pryor's sassy "godson," Eddie Murphy, avoided in his delirious HBO concert last month, the better to strut his glitter and gift for mimicry.) But even back-burner Pryor is hot enough. Savor the funny bits on herpes, abortion clinics, nuclear holocausts and men's-room etiquette. And tune in next year for The Pryor Next Time.

-- By Richard Corliss This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.