‘Talkin’ Dirty After Dark’: Humor Without a Mean Streak

The trouble with the low-down, low-budget “Talkin’ Dirty After Dark” (citywide), which is set in a comedy club in a black neighborhood, is that it spends most of its 86 minutes in contrived, uninspired and repetitive backstage shenanigans instead of spotlighting its large and amusing cast onstage.

Martin Lawrence, who has already made his mark on the screen in “Do the Right Thing” and the “House Party” movies, is clearly a talent to be reckoned with, a young man with an amiable, relaxed presence that allows him to get away with sex jokes of the kind that made Moms Mabley and Redd Foxx famous.

Yet we only get to experience a few moments of him working the audience; the rest of the time he’s playing this struggling comic who’s trying to escape the clutches of the plump, aggressive wife (Jedda Jones) of the club’s owner; he’s promised her sexual favors in return for her getting him a spot on the show.

We get to see even less of the talented Phyllis Stickney in her stand-up routine; her part has her spending most of her time panting after the club’s owner (John Witherspoon). There are any number of fine comedians--e.g., Dwayne Kennedy, who’s sharply satirical--who are likewise constricted by debuting writer-director Topper Carewe’s thin, trite plotting.

On the plus side, “Talkin’ Dirty After Dark” (for language, sensuality), while in gesture and speech is exuberantly uninhibited in regard to sex, it is genuinely, refreshingly good-natured; there’s not even the slightest streak of meanness in its humor.

‘Talkin’ Dirty After Dark’ Martin Lawrence: Terry John Witherspoon: Dukie Jedda Jones: Ruby Lin Phyllis Stickney: Aretha

A New Line Cinema presentation. Writer-director Topper Carewe. Producer Patricia Stallone. Executive producer Kevin Moreton. Cinematographer Misha Suslov. Editor Claudia Finkle. Costumes Doug Olson. Production design Dan Whifler. Art director Bruton Jones. Set decorator Larry Dias. Sound Oliver Moss. Running time: 1 hour, 54 minutes.

MPAA-rated R (for language, sensuality).