Life Pics

The film begins with an elderly inmate named Willie Long (Obba Babatundé) attending the burial of two friends who have just recently perished in an infimary fire. He begins to tell two young men (Heavy D and Bonz Malone) who are inmates at the prison his friends' life story.

Ray Gibson (Eddie Murphy) and Claude Banks (Martin Lawrence) are two New Yorkers in 1932 from different worlds. Ray is a small-time hustler and petty thief, and Claude has just been accepted for a job as a bank teller, trying to make something of himself. They are both at a club named Spanky's when Ray picks Claude as his mark to pick-pocket. Later they both end up in debt to the club's owner, a loan shark named "Spanky" (Rick James). Ray arranges to have himself and Claude do some boot-legging in order to pay off their debt.

They head down south from New York to buy a carload of Mississippi 'hooch'. Unfortunately, before they can get back to New York, a man named Winston Hancock (Clarence Williams III), who earlier swindled Ray in a card game, is murdered outside of a juke joint by the sheriff. Through a misunderstanding (and the sheriff's complicity), Ray and Claude are blamed for the crime, and are sentenced to life in prison. They are sent to an infamous prison camp called 'Camp 8', located at the Mississippi State Penitentiary.^[1]

At first Claude tries to get out by himself legally by telling his girlfriend Daisy to ask his attorney cousin Melvin to file an appeal on his behalf. Later, Claude gets a letter from Melvin and the news is not good. The appeal has been denied and Daisy has left Claude for Melvin; the two are now engaged to be married. Left with no chance of being released, Claude partners with Ray, who claims to have an escape plan.

Ray and Claude make several attempts to escape the prison. Early in their incarceration, they simply try running away in the middle of the night, getting as far as Tallahatchie before being tracked down; they are sentenced to a week in solitary confinement for their effort.

Around 1944, during World War II, they meet a mute inmate named 'Can't-Get-Right' (Woodbine) who happens to be a talented baseball player. He catches the eye of a Negro League scout who indicates he can get him out of prison to play baseball. Seeing this as a golden opportunity to get out of prison, Ray and Claude tell the scout to put a word in for them as well (as they relate to 'Can't-Get-Right' in that they can coax him best to play). A month before his release, a homosexual inmate, Biscuit (Miguel A. Nuñez), commits suicide by deliberately running past the 'gun line', compelling a rifle-armed trustee to shoot him, as he feared returning home to his family a gay man. After 'Can't-Get-Right' is released to play baseball for the

Life is a 1999 American comedy-drama film directed by Ted Demme, and starring Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence. The supporting cast includes Obba Babatundé, Bernie Mac, Anthony Anderson, Miguel A. Núñez Jr. and Bokeem Woodbine. The film's format is a story being told by an elderly inmate (Babatundé) about two of his friends (Murphy and Lawrence), who are both wrongly convicted of murder and given a life sentence in prison.