TOO MUCH TO LOSE

By RICHARD CORLISS

Martin Lawrence, as an out-of-work electronics whiz in the new comedy Nothing to Lose, meets co-star Tim Robbins when he jumps into Robbins' car, brandishes a pistol and demands money. But, he later explains in a tone of aggrieved dignity, "I don't steal. I just dabble in future used goods." It is the art of the con man--and of the movie actor--to fool others so exquisitely that he may be fooling himself. So admirers of the popular actor-comedian must hope, and detractors will wonder, when Lawrence defends himself against a flurry of criminal and domestic accusations by saying, "I've grown." "I'm cool." "I'm a kind, gentle person."

Lawrence, 32, is certainly a valuable property in Hollywood. He has succeeded in concert films (You So Crazy) and on TV (as star of the Fox sitcom Martin, which just ended a five-year run and has already earned $60 million in syndication sales). He starred with Will Smith in the 1995 hit Bad Boys and last year was star, director and co-writer of the dark comedy A Thin Line Between Love and Hate, in which he is wrongly arrested and tries to get a restraining order on a woman who is out to kill him. His new film has all the moves of a '90s action comedy: the macho bonding and bantering, the glints of earthy wit overshadowed by gun waving and pratfalling--exactly what you'd expect from director Steve Oedekerk, the auteur of Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls.

You can also expect the movie to be a hit, and to solidify Lawrence's rep as a multimedia comedy star: Richard Pryor, the next generation. Lawrence has Pryor's bantam pugnacity, but he lacks the underdog charm, the skewed genius for mimicry and acerb social humor. He has got the Pryor attitude but not the aptitude. And maybe there can be another difference: Lawrence must keep from setting himself and his career on fire.

He has struck the match often enough. In May 1996 police forcibly subdued him when he was ranting "Fight the power!" in a busy intersection in Sherman Oaks, Calif.; a loaded gun was in his pocket. Last August he was arrested at Burbank Airport for carrying a loaded revolver. This January Tisha Campbell, his Martin co-star, filed a suit alleging sexual harassment and refused to appear in intimate scenes with him. In March he was arrested after a man said the star punched him inside a Hollywood nightery. Now Lawrence is fighting his ex-wife's challenge to their prenuptial agreement. Patricia Southall Lawrence charges him with "irrational and abusive behavior" (which he denies) and says he has taken "psychotropic" medicine and was cared for by a full-time nurse.

Even his friends suggest a dark side. "Will Smith is Evander Holyfield, and Martin is Mike Tyson," says Steve White, a Martin writer and onetime Lawrence roommate. "I like Tyson; he'll do anything for you. But he's misunderstood." Jamie Masada, who runs the L.A. comedy club the Laugh Factory, saw a change in Lawrence as fame engulfed him: "The illusion got to his head. He came in with bodyguards, security people. Some people can handle it. But if you're not focused and strong, it can kill you."

Lawrence, who seemed sedate if not sedated in a conversation last week with TIME, agrees that success is a bitch goddess: "I tried to prepare for it. But you can't really prepare for it." He says of the Sherman Oaks incident, "It was a time when I was working very hard, and I should have been home resting. My marriage wasn't going very well, and it was a difficult time in my life." He says that any medication "was doctor-prescribed. It was no more than taking an aspirin." He insists that his temper flare-ups are over. "I had to learn to keep myself together--to understand that drinking excessively can get you into trouble." He says he and his ex-wife "have to stay in communication" because of their 18-month-old daughter Jasmin. "We have to do what we have to do for our child."

He also charges Southall with "a lot of trickery" in getting him to check into the Sierra Tucson drug-rehab center in Arizona last August. "I was there for one day and came home. I found that it took me to get myself together, instead of some program." Alluding to his new film, he says, "The flip side to having nothing to lose is having something to gain. I'm there--I'm getting there. I'm growing up. I'm happy as I'm going to get."

Lawrence is not just a man with problems; he is also an entertainment franchise. A lot of money is riding on his ability to grow up. Otherwise, people who love him will suffer. And he will be future used goods.

--Reported by Patrick E. Cole/Los Angeles

With reporting by Patrick E. Cole/Los Angeles