Post by joekiddlouischama on Jun 21, 2017 10:03:24 GMT
Having just seen it, here is my review:
All Eyez on Me is an engrossing, well-paced, largely solid biopic about the short life of iconic rapper Tupac Shakur that nonetheless causes the viewer to want a little more. A relatively long film at 140 minutes, it plays shorter due to the movie's even-keeled nature and resultant ability to hold the viewer's attention while touching on Shakur's myriad influences, inspirations, relationships, controversies, and often violent ordeals. But a shaky concluding sequence that tries too hard to milk its fatalism and telegraph its tragedy deprives the film of an incisive conclusion, removing the rawness and shock of
Just as problematic is the film's failure to make more of Shakur's intense contradictions, including his potential hypocrisies as he oscillates between preaching social gospel on the one hand and indulging in commercial self-glorification or macho retribution on the other. The Jada Pinkett character (yes, the character, not the actual actress) raises these contradictions or hypocrisies on a couple of occasions, as does an interviewing black journalist, but just as Shakur quickly shakes off the discrepancies, so too does the film, opting for some sort of inherent reconciling of the clashing elements in the interest of sympathizing with its charismatic protagonist. That is not to say that the movie should have adopted a condemnatory attitude toward its Shakespearean hardcore-rapper prodigy, but a little more ambiguity and exploration would have been worthwhile. Instead, All Eyez on Me raises fascinating contradictions and then more or less lets them drop.
A prime example occurs when Shakur, upon promoting his Death Row East record label in New York in 1996, refers to his company as a new "government" that will "feed the people," replacing the failed "governments" (labels). Clearly, he is borrowing the revolutionary rhetoric and populist disposition that he absorbed at a young age from his former Black Panther mother and stepfather. However, he is employing that social-consciousness vernacular in service of a capitalistic enterprise, and a self-aggrandizing one at that. Here rests a major contradiction—yet alas, no exploration. One could argue that All Eyez on Me at least obliquely raises the contradiction, but the film does nothing with it.
Hip-hop aficionados, along with non-fans who possess a general interest in popular music history (such as myself), will likely enjoy seeing the parade of iconic figures and the intricate web of ambiguous relationships that they spin around each other. But like most biopics, All Eyez on Me probably sacrifices some depth for the sake of its breadth. The movie offers a generally satisfactory experience, but it potentially could have been much more. One will find some of the same urban elements, motifs, and concerns that recently appeared in Moonlight, but whereas that brilliant film captured those aspects with a level of intimacy and humanity that transcended race and sexual orientation, they appear far more clichéd in All Eyez on Me. Ultimately, one feels as if one is watching some kind of cultural service more than a broadly relatable saga. The service is pretty good, but there is a degree of distance that proves limiting.
All Eyez on Me is an engrossing, well-paced, largely solid biopic about the short life of iconic rapper Tupac Shakur that nonetheless causes the viewer to want a little more. A relatively long film at 140 minutes, it plays shorter due to the movie's even-keeled nature and resultant ability to hold the viewer's attention while touching on Shakur's myriad influences, inspirations, relationships, controversies, and often violent ordeals. But a shaky concluding sequence that tries too hard to milk its fatalism and telegraph its tragedy deprives the film of an incisive conclusion, removing the rawness and shock of
Shakur's murder
. (If you need that spoiler protection, you know nothing about Tupac Shakur.) At one point, All Eyez on Me seems like it may be attempting to imitate the gracefully stunning final image of American Sniper, only with awkwardness instead of grace. Ultimately, the rather weak ending knocks the film down from "good" to "pretty good" in my opinion. Just as problematic is the film's failure to make more of Shakur's intense contradictions, including his potential hypocrisies as he oscillates between preaching social gospel on the one hand and indulging in commercial self-glorification or macho retribution on the other. The Jada Pinkett character (yes, the character, not the actual actress) raises these contradictions or hypocrisies on a couple of occasions, as does an interviewing black journalist, but just as Shakur quickly shakes off the discrepancies, so too does the film, opting for some sort of inherent reconciling of the clashing elements in the interest of sympathizing with its charismatic protagonist. That is not to say that the movie should have adopted a condemnatory attitude toward its Shakespearean hardcore-rapper prodigy, but a little more ambiguity and exploration would have been worthwhile. Instead, All Eyez on Me raises fascinating contradictions and then more or less lets them drop.
A prime example occurs when Shakur, upon promoting his Death Row East record label in New York in 1996, refers to his company as a new "government" that will "feed the people," replacing the failed "governments" (labels). Clearly, he is borrowing the revolutionary rhetoric and populist disposition that he absorbed at a young age from his former Black Panther mother and stepfather. However, he is employing that social-consciousness vernacular in service of a capitalistic enterprise, and a self-aggrandizing one at that. Here rests a major contradiction—yet alas, no exploration. One could argue that All Eyez on Me at least obliquely raises the contradiction, but the film does nothing with it.
Hip-hop aficionados, along with non-fans who possess a general interest in popular music history (such as myself), will likely enjoy seeing the parade of iconic figures and the intricate web of ambiguous relationships that they spin around each other. But like most biopics, All Eyez on Me probably sacrifices some depth for the sake of its breadth. The movie offers a generally satisfactory experience, but it potentially could have been much more. One will find some of the same urban elements, motifs, and concerns that recently appeared in Moonlight, but whereas that brilliant film captured those aspects with a level of intimacy and humanity that transcended race and sexual orientation, they appear far more clichéd in All Eyez on Me. Ultimately, one feels as if one is watching some kind of cultural service more than a broadly relatable saga. The service is pretty good, but there is a degree of distance that proves limiting.
