|
Reviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
NOTORIOUS Hip-Hop, in its own strange way, is a little like tofu. Some people love it, some people hate it, and the rest of us won’t complain if it floats around in our miso soup, but sure as hell aren’t going to order it in place of poultry anytime soon. Notorious, the new biopic tracing the storied rise and tragic fall of Brooklyn’s most influential rapper, is a movie for the masses. Well, maybe it’s not going to be the motivating force to get Grandma out of the nursing home and into the multiplex, but I can say this much: the day I eat a tofu turkey is the day I die, but the night after I saw this flick, the Notorious B.I.G. somehow ended up in my iTunes, sandwiched between Nick Drake and Otis Redding, ratcheting up an impressive number of plays. Notorious jumps over some daunting hurdles—believably portraying an iconic, physically distinctive superstar who died only over a decade ago; rising above the clichéd rags-to-riches gangsta rap narrative that recently failed in Get Rich or Die Tryin’; and evoking sympathy for a lying, drug-dealing, womanizing protagonist who would rather smoke a blunt than change his baby’s diaper—to become something of a wonder. Not unlike the underappreciated Cadillac Records, Notorious manages to infuse old-school conventions with an electric immediacy; the recording studio transforms into something as cinematic as a boxing ring, the concert stage may as well be a coliseum. Just as impressively, director George Tillman Jr., with the help of an efficient script that marries emotional believability with the genre, has crafted a film that makes the American Dream seem possible again in the wake of The Dark Knight, when any such sincere testament may seem depressingly outdated. Much of Notorious’ success is due to its cast. Jamal Woolard, the troubled rapper with a nearly nonexistent acting background, captures the mannerisms of Biggie Smalls the celebrity and brings out shades of the man behind the mic that make him at once menacing and vulnerable, awesome and cuddly. He is joined by an equally talented cast of rising stars (Anthony Mackie as Tupac, Derek Luke as Puff Daddy), seasoned veterans (Angela Basset as Biggie’s mother), and relative newcomers (Naturi Naughton as Lil’ Kim and Antonique Smith as Faith Evans). In its
final act, Notorious falls victim to the incessant urge of
Hollywood biopics to clean up a little too neatly the mess its subject’s darker side has sporadically
made, but its momentum lasted all the way from Union Square, across
the L train and down the G train, to my apartment, located not far from
where Biggie grew up, which I returned to with a new respect and new
songs to play on my stereo.
Patrick Wood
|
