Notorious
Review
by Anthony Morris
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Turning
someone's life into a film isn't all that hard - you just find the big
moments of their life and string them together.
What is difficult is doing it in such a way that the end result doesn't feel like you are ticking off a laundry list.
Sadly, for most of it's running time, Notorious tends to skew more towards the "list" school of movie making.
So
we start at the start, with the young Clarence Wallace (AKA Biggie
Smalls, AKA Notorious B.I.G) growing up on the street of 1980s Brooklyn
under the watchful eye of his sainted mother (who is a producer of this
film).
But the lure of hip-hop and easy money is too
much for Biggie, who ditches school, starts dealing drugs, and starts
being played by Jamal Woolard - which is important because it is his
performance as Biggie that makes this film more than your average
biopic.
Whether you are a huge Biggie fan or you know nothing about him, Woolard's performance is nothing less than totally convincing.
He
wrenches the film towards some semblance of reality even when the
dialogue is nothing more than famous people introducing themselves to
each other by their full names and saying "We are going to change the
world!".
The decision to not skip over Biggie's sordid
past isn't quite as confronting as it first seems: while we might see
Biggie cold-bloodedly selling crack to a pregnant woman, that same
woman turns up later as a happy, healthy mother of a smiling child.
So, hey, clearly it was the right thing to do...
But
while the actors playing Puff Daddy and 2Pac are completely
forgettable, Naturi Naughton as L'il Kim is even more compellingly
skanky than she needs to be.
In fact, if someone wants to make a Sid & Nancy style film about Notorious and L'il Kim using Woolard and Naughton - you would have an Oscar winner right there.
Instead,
we are left with this mildly frustrating effort that never really gets
in under the surface facts of Biggie's life, a film that is merely good
when - going by some of the cast - it could have been great.
3.5 out
of 5
Notorious
Australian release: 12th March,
2009
Official
Site: Notorious
Cast: Jamal Woolard, Angela Bassett, Derek Luke
Director: George Tillman Jr.
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