Martin Lawrence Live: Runteldat

Prudes won't survive a single minute of Martin Lawrence Live: Runteldat, but those who brave the journey will be duly--albeit conditionally--rewarded. This is surely the dirtiest comedy performance ever released to the general public, but beneath his barrage of profanity, crudeness, and unabashed sexual material, Lawrence gets into some serious truth about life's trials and tribulations, to which (he repeatedly observes) none of us are immune. The title's a hip-hop contraction of "run and tell that," and Lawrence runs and tells like a seasoned pro, expounding on his own misdeeds (arrest for disturbing the peace, substance abuse, his heatstroke-induced coma) and mining comedic gold from the hazards of marital candor under the influence of Courvasier. Lawrence is a better actor than a writer--his material's inconsistent, but his delivery is lose-your-lunch hilarious, digging gems of keen observation from life's messiest details. One might wish for greater substance, but Lawrence can runteldat with a righteous guilt-free conscience. --Jeff Shannon