Biggie Smalls aka the Notorious B.I.G. was a large rapper who made lots of paper until violence cut short his career. He’d always be known to his mama as Christopher Wallace, a little boy from Brooklyn.
Christopher Wallace (Jamal Woolard) has finally made it big in the rap music game. He’s on top when a perceived rivalry between East Coast and West Coast rappers leads to a violent end for him.
He started off his career as a shy kid (Christopher Jordan Wallace) living with his mom Voletta (Angela Bassett), Dad left long ago, and yearning for the fame and paper (money) that several of the neighborhood toughs seemed to display. The money was easy enough to come by as Christopher starts dealing drugs. He sees this as his profession and his rap music his side job.
Unfortunately, he gets caught doing that and ends up in prison. During his incarceration he starts writing down his raps. When he gets out, he’s introduced to Sean “Puffy” Combs (Derek Luke) and Puffy promises him a recording career with Uptown Records, but only if he will stop dealing drugs.
It nearly comes crashing down as Wallace barely avoids going to jail again for possession of a firearm and Puffy is fired from Uptown Records. Just when he thinks it can’t get any worse he finds out his mom has breast cancer.
Things begin to turn the other way when Puffy branches out to form his own label and he wants Biggie to record for him. Christopher has many women in his life besides his mother, including his baby momma Jan (Julia Pace Mitchell), lover and protégée Lil’ Kim (Naturi Naughton), and wife Faith Evans (Antonique Smith).
He also becomes friends with rapper and movie star Tupac Shakur (Anthony Mackie). However, all this will come crashing down as Tupac blames Biggie for him getting shot and a rivalry between rappers fuels much more shooting.
Full disclosure up front, I’m not a fan of rap. That out of the way I’m going to have to say that although I did like the film it ran hot and cold for me.
Biggie Smalls might’ve been on top towards the end of his life, but petty rivalries and violence brought that all to and end. It reminds me of the current infatuation with the gangsta lifestyle and preoccupation with death.
I’ve always thought of the Scarface film (both of them actually) as being a warning – don’t let this happen to you. Al actually ends up gunned down in a pool of his own blood for Pete’s sake. It’s nothing that anyone should be striving for. Yet there’s a thriving industry producing memorabilia glamorizing Scarface.
Biggie Smalls, according to the film, was regaining his soul when he was gunned down in LA. It’s hard for me to be too hard on Jamal Woolard since this is his first acting gig, though he is a rapper as well. He spends much of the film with the traditional rapper’s scowl on his face, but there are still a few touching moments.
Unfortunately, that scowl and attitude kept me from seeing Biggie the man and thought that a more seasoned actor might’ve brought more to the role. I really don’t know too much about Biggie Smalls, some of the aspects of his story seem more like good screenplay than life perhaps.
He seems to rethink his life towards the end and perhaps he truly did, but it felt like an attempt to pull the heartstrings by the screenwriters.
Notorious does include two versions of the film, the 123 minute theatrical cut and the 129 minute extended director’s cut. As biopics go I thought that Notorious was a middling one. Rap fans might get more out of it, but it was an okay film.
Notorious is presented in a 1080p high definition transfer (2.40:1). Special features include two commentaries, one with director George Tillman, Jr., co-screenwriter Reggie Rock Bythewood, co-screenwriter Cheo Hodari Coker, and editor Dirk Westervelt and the other with producer/Biggie’s Mom Voletta Wallace, producer/Biggies co-manager Wayne Barrow and producer/Biggie's co-manager Mark Pitts. The theatrical version also features a BD-Live music list and trivia playlist.
The only standard definition special feature is a 3 minute performance of “Party & Bullshit” with the real Biggie. The rest are in high definition and include a 27 minute making of, the 9 minute “I got a Story to Tell: the Lyrics of Biggie Smalls” delving into the real person, the 9 minute “Notorious Thugs” about casting the film, the 6 minute “Biggie Boot Camp” about preparing the actors, the 5 minute “Anatomy of a B.I.G. Performance” about how they recreated Biggie’s shows, 12 minutes of deleted scenes, and the B.I.G. Three-Sixty which is a virtual tour of Brooklyn with documentaries woven into it. Disc two is a digital copy of the film.
Biggie Smalls coulda had it all, but he lost his life in the process. That’s why he’s become legend in the hip-hop community. Actually, it was his talent with the rhyme that helped cement that legend. The biopic is decent enough but seems to rely on tried and true biopic screenplay lines, especially towards the end. I’m in the middle, but I was torn by the film as I wanted to like it more than I actually did.
Notorious [Blu-ray] is now available at Amazon . Visit the DVD database for more information.
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