Opens August 11, 2000

Four stand-out stand-ups take their straight-at-you routines to the Charlotte Coliseum as part of the hugely popular The Original Kings of Comedy tour, featuring African/American comedians Steve Harvey, D.L. Hughley, Cedric the Entertainer and Bernie Mack. They're the latest in a proud lineage of black comedians, who have included such popular, crossover comics as Nipsey Russell, Richard Pryor, Eddie Murphy, Jackie "Moms" Mabeley and Bill Cosby. Since its inception in 1997, the Kings tour has turned the turnstiles with more than $37 million, and it's easy to see why.

Filmed by Spike Lee, Kings of Comedy is a backstage/front-row seat at a 1999 Kings event where, as emcee/participant Steve Harvey says, it's a "country ass" crowd. While nearly 100% black - the white folk in the front are a source of jest, not surprisingly. The comedy, especially, dogs down the current p.c. malaise. These guys "say stuff," and it's not the kind of thing most people say in polite society, but it's what they're thinking: Behavioral differences between blacks and whites are a constant source of amusement, as well as differences between black women and men.

One of the more uproarious bits is Harvey's sly send-up of the movie Titanic, and how it would have been different if the big boat was filled with blacks: "For one thing, no one would have made a movie about that, but the other thing, Kool and the Gang definitely would not have still been playing when the ship went down." Harvey, in particular, is able to mine his satire from topical touchstones and get his more caustic points across in a zingy but utterly non-abrasive fashion, truly a guy with a very smart style.

Harvey takes it straight to the Charlotte crowd right off, addressing the Rae Carruth murder case, in which the black football star was accused of hiring hit men to kill his pregnant girlfriend. While walking the fine legal line because Carruth has not yet come to trial, he manages to drive home his points by focusing his humor on the footballer's moronic escape attempt. Overall, the comedy of Kings concentrates more on human foibles than social or political situations. The comic focus, although edgy at times, centers on how different groups - blacks and whites, men and women, kids and adults - approach things differently. Such seemingly innocuous, everyday things as arriving at a concert and finding someone in your seats are hilariously milked when Harvey approaches it from a black folks vs. white folks style.

As he made clear in his opening-act routine, Harvey (who also emceed) is an unabashed "old school" kind of brother who grew up on the Temptations and Motown, and his humor hit home with the generally middle-aged, buppie crowd. Lambasting hip-hop and taking blasts at rap concerts drew howls of laughter, especially.

Those of you who might remember Jackie "Moms" Mabeley from The Smothers Brothers will see a lot of her weary, dead-on observations in Cedric the Entertainer, a roly-poly guy whose sly appreciations for group idiosyncrasies and the goofiness of commonplace behaviors are a droll treat. Cedric's lampoons and humorous jousts focus on the unique aspects of black life: It's very smart/dumb stuff, such as how blacks are likely just to start running if they see other blacks running. While making light of such identifiable behavior, he clearly implies the social/political situations that have generated such take-off trots. Without going into a whole nasty, off-putting, accusatory harangue about race relations, the ebullient Entertainer loads his laughs with some shrewd undersides and societal observations.

As directed by Spike Lee, Kings is most regal in getting to the edgy essences of human behavior. If comedy points up the disparity between the way things are and the way things ought to be, this documentary is at once a hoot, as well as a smart tract of sociology and human psychology. The four cut-up's perceptions and observations are, of course, amplified by the degree to which they see things that are out of whack.

Overall, these Kings' comedy, from D.L. Hughley's broad, "Big Momma" hilarities to Cederic Mac's more in-your-face style about black child-rearing, is keenly observed and classily presented. True, these guys got jokes but they also got smarts. In this era of wishy-washy, touchy-feely, multi-cultural malarkey, their "straight stuff" will not only hit a lot of funny bones, but stir up some brain matter, as well.

Not surprisingly, director Spike Lee's owl-eyed slants on human quirks bring out the best in these comedians' routines. Unfortunately, the documentary doesn't have the visual pizzazz of other documentary concert films, such as Hal Ashby's much more visually articulate and visceral depiction of a Rolling Stones' concert where the sounds, thuds, and backstage nervousness played so much into the whole dynamic and group feel of the concert. Lee's distillation, still, is perceptive and plays especially well in intercuts as the four guys goof it up in the park, or just clown around. A sequence with Cedric the Entertainer, alone in the men's room before his performance, intoning a Gregorian chant is wonderfully loony and off-the-wall.