Notorious Movie Review
Monday, January 19th, 2009
This weekend I had a chance to take in the movie Notorious. This movie is probably the first ‘hip hop’ movie seen in theaters (skipped hustle & flow can’t remember any others). It’s also the first biopic I have seen at the cineplex.
Going in to the movie I was fairly neutral, I hoped for the best but was prepared for the worst.
The theater was packed, which is generally a good sign, one that meant good or bad this movie was going to make money (opened 4th in the box office at $24,000,000).
The movie itself obviously follows a straight forward story arc: Biggie goes to school where he is a good student, grows up sells drugs and starts rapping, does a bid, has adult relationships with his baby Mamma, Lil Kim and Faith, meets Puff, sells a lot of records, becomes friends with Tupac, then enimies with Tupac, gets in a car accident, makes moves to spend more time with his family and friends and work on a new album, gets shot in LA. The end.
If you are going into this movie expecting more information than what’s already out on the internet about the life and times of Christopher Wallace, don’t.
Most things are where they should be (although a few people are absent) and the ending is wrapped up into a nice little package.
Most of the movie is spent on his love triangle (Faith, Kim Biggie) and build up and break down of the relationship with Tupac which lead to the rise of the West coast East coast rivalry. Outside of musical relationships the movie also does a good job of establishing the solid relationship Big had with his mother, and his friend D-Nice.
The actors playing the big roles in this movie did their homework and the portrayal of Little Kim and Puff being pretty well bang on.
Angela Bassett and Jamal Woolard also do a great job of being a believable mother and son.
The set crew for this movie also did a great job in making it period correct. The cars, clothes, gear and music were all period correct. (I had completely forgot about Mecca Clothing! There was also an e30 in the movie which is always good.)
My only gripe with the movie would be the clean gloss over one Sean Combs. Puffy comes off as someone who could do no wrong and was a guiding light in Biggies life.
A person who helped him turn it around for the better. Maybe this was indeed the case but I find it hard to believe that in their time together they didn’t have one rift in the relationship or not see eye to eye on an issue. A lot of people have been saying Diddy used Big, and that he is career poision so with Diddy having a heavy hand in this movie I suppose I should have known he would come out glistening.
All in all the move was enjoyable and I do recommend it to Biggie fans and non Biggie fans alike.
I didn’t feel it was a waste of time or money and it was great to get a little bit more insight into the life of Biggie Smalls.
Slightly more emceeing couldn’t have hurt though.
If you have not yet, find this, its dope:
