SENTENCED TO `LIFE'? CONSIDER FILING AN APPEAL.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic

``Life'' goes on. And on.

Though it boasts slightly more than the minimum sentence of entertainment value, this Eddie Murphy-Martin Lawrence prison comedy, much like its heroes, never really goes anywhere and takes its sweet time in the process.

Superficial throughout and, at some points, ludicrously idealized, the movie fails to convincingly put across its basic idea, that sassy, vulgar humor enables innocent men to survive 60 years at Mississippi's notorious Parchman Farm. The kind of palpable misery we've heard about in all those blues songs is jokily acknowledged but not very vivid. Both the laughs and the point of this inevitably episodic movie would have been stronger if the filmmakers had had the guts to paint a tougher, more realistic picture.

The film's pleasures rest almost exclusively in the performances, which is saying something since there isn't much in the way of character development to latch onto. Our heroes start out as cranky goofballs and just get more so as they age.

Murphy and Lawrence play Harlem odd couple Ray and Claude, who in the early 1930s got on the wrong side of an underworld nightclub operator (funk freak Rick James, quite effective). In order to retain all their limbs, conman Ray and aspiring bank clerk Claude agree to retrieve a truckload of moonshine from Mississippi.

Apparently unmindful of how African-Americans are expected to behave in the pre-civil rights South (one early, very funny scene involves a diner full of white folks who take their pies very seriously), Ray and Claude soon find themselves framed for a gambler's murder. Before they know it, they're in segregated, indentured servitude for, well, forever, alongside a gaggle of homicidal (but essentially lovable, once you get to know them) fellow lifers.

What little plotting there is from this point on involves, first, Ray and Claude's efforts to not get raped, then, for the next six decades, to escape.

The latter shouldn't be all that hard; despite the white warden's (Nick Cassavetes) tough talk, the gardenlike work camp has no walls, and its chain gangs are rarely chained. Security is so lax that one of the inmates even manages to impregnate the superintendent's beautiful blond daughter.

Over the years, the prisoners enjoy conjugal visits, baseball competitions and even barbecues stocked with white lightning and local floozies - Bukka White wouldn't recognize the place (but then, authenticity was so low on the agenda here that ``Life's'' score was composed by Wyclef Jean).

Despite these amenities, Ray and Claude manage to find a lot to complain about. More often than not, it's one another, and since Murphy and Lawrence can cook up a head of raunchy ragging like nobody's business, the movie's meandering pulse always quickens when the bickering nonfriends go off.

Another good thing about the main performances - as well as those of such flavorful supporting players as Obba Babatunde, Brent Jennings and the gargantuan Michael ``Bear'' Taliferro - is how persuasively they age. Though still sticking close to the surface, Murphy and Lawrence admirably incorporate the effects of decades of hard labor and increasing hopelessness into their portrayals. Rick Baker's top-notch makeup effects add a lot, too, much as his work did to Murphy's ``Nutty Professor.''

If director Ted Demme (``Beautiful Girls,'' ``The Ref'') and screenwriters Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone had put as much care into ``Life's'' psychological and social elements as Baker did the aging makeup, the movie might have achieved something approximating its title.

THE FACTS

The film: ``Life'' (R; language, violence).

The stars: Eddie Murphy, Martin Lawrence, Obba Babatunde, Ned Beatty, Bokeem Woodbine, Nick Cassavetes.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Ted Demme. Written by Robert Ramsey and Matthew Stone. Produced by Brian Grazer and Eddie Murphy. Released by Universal Pictures.

Running time: One hour, 48 minutes.

Playing: Citywide.

Our rating: Two and one half stars.

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Photo

Photo: Eddie Murphy, left, and Martin Lawrence are incarcerated together for 60 years in ``Life.''