Shallow, hollow biopic
All Eyez On Me (R16, 139 mins), directed by Benny Boom, ★★
Straight Outta Compton? More like shoulda gone direct-to-DVD. For this overlong, overwrought and once-over-lightly dramatisation of the life and death of US rapper Tupac Shakur feels like something cut-and-pasted from biopic-making 101.
Mostly framed by a clunky interviewer-device, it speeds through his formative years as the son of Black Panther leaders and discovery of the arts in Baltimore, before focusing on his repeated run-ins with the law, rise to fame and disagreements with fellow wordsmiths.
Any of which could have made for a compelling 8 Mile or Compton-style drama. But, in the hands of the bombastic Benny Boom, the pace is relentlessly onenote, save for the occasional slomo to emphasise a dramatic turning point.
He isn’t helped by a script that criminally, despite Shakur’s Shakespearian knowledge and belief that he’s ‘‘got rhymes’’, is remarkably tin-eared. If it isn’t spouting expletives, it’s drowning in exposition.
One character describes the film’s ‘‘hero’’ as a mass of contradictions – the same could be said for this film. It clearly wants to be authentic (hence the use of Shakur’s real music videos – complete with onscreen credits) and yet it revels in the Empirelevel melodrama that surrounded him.
That might have worked had they had a Taraji P Henson or Terence Howard onboard – but they don’t. Instead, they have a very impressive Tupac lookalike and a guy who does a great vocal impression of Snoop Dogg (who appeared to provide a comedy highlight for the initially packed cinema I was in – every time he spoke).
Throw in some clearly fake newspaper headlines, appalling female character stereotypes and a clunky over-caffeinated score and the end result is a shallow, hollow look at a man who sold 75 million albums before he died at the age of 25.
In light of both Compton and this year’s Oscar-winning Moonlight, All Eyez feels like such a crushing disappointment. – James Croot