Review of All Eyez on Me (2017) by Mika S — 17 Jun 2017

FILM REVIEW: 'ALL EYEZ ON ME'.

A drama that tries desperately hard to encapsulate the essence and hard-hitting figure of Tupac Shakur, yet within the 2 hour and twenty minutes, the biopic manages to incorporate scenes showcasing the nascent born leader aspect of his life, the urban struggles he witnessed and the hedonistic, visually flashy aspect of Hollywood pageantry that he accustomed to in his latter days.

The iconographic "Thug life" tatted on his belly, the bandanas, the nose ring, words he uttered in interviews with gravitas, and his plethora of music as he termed "spiritual" made people think or dance all at the same time, was the memorable portrait people painted of him. Beyond the physical bravado, there was much more intrinsically to him, down to the trenches of the inner workings of his mind and the heart of his that refused to buckle down to a system that was neglecting the black community.

To imagine creating a film about Tupac's life with all the circumstances he faced, the many players he crossed paths with and the contradictory nature of his persona, from the thuggish bone in his body, to the revolutionary side akin to Malcolm X, helming this project was nothing short of complex. And the chosen person to take on the reigns of such an ambitious project was Benny boom, Hip-Hop music director aficionado. With the forte of having done countless music videos, the beginning of the movie and its display take to that fashion, unfortunately without giving it a much needed narrative seamlessness to give some scenes to breath, and the viewer to absorb the layers of meaning it might have potentially produced. In that way, the eye of the viewer will see reel after reel (flashbacks) going from one event to another as we first see Tupac's present situation in prison doing an interview that tells of his past upbringing. From his nomadic lifestyle we glance at him moving from New York to Baltimore as a teen, entering the Baltimore School for the arts in 1980 where he formed a friendship with Jada Pinkett (Kat Graham) and then to his settling in Oakland, California, the reel-esque approach of scenes became depthless and unnecessary. But given the fact a director whose work depends on a script, there was nothing else that could have been done, although experience in implementing change to the script to fit his vision may have sufficed well.

That said, "All Eyez On Me" worked best due to its main leader, Demetrius ship Jr, who without a doubt looked the part, bringing us admiration to the bigger than life rap star. With the smile Tupac exuded, white-teeth and glossy eyes, it was all too uncanny, so uncanny at times you couldn't tell the two apart. We see him as a Shakespearean lover who spoke the words of the Renaissance man and at times we see glimpses of his raw passion, courage, and the rebel features of his personality. It wasn't perfect to say the least as the real Tupac Shakur had passion in his voice when he articulated his thoughts, while Demetrius' passion in some scenes would be mistaken for anger. The passionate side of Tupac came through the channel of his political activist mother, the emblematic Black Panther, Afeni Shakur, played by Danai Gurira. Gurira makes her a spiritual voice, unreserved and a beckon of light to the hopelessness of her son as he sat in prison: "Let me see your spirit...your body is in prison, but not your mind." She said prison wasn't kind to her while she was pregnant with him, and white America was only going to stop him by keeping him in this awful place. Just as the rigorist nature of police who beat him down for jaywalking and the correctional officers who wanted to see him suffer, it was evident his mother's words and these incidents spurred in him a defiant nature to get out and achieve greatness.

In dire need of help to post bail, Tupac has a meeting with the tall, indomitable, 350-pound Suge Knight (Dominic Santana), CEO of DeathRow who carried himself like a bulldozer. He gives Tupac a proposal: only by signing a contract with Death Row Records, will he be able to bail him out. And thus he does, and Tupac's life changes forever. The second part of the movie, we see the Death Row Era of Tupac come alive. The structure of the movie relaxes and we see the scope of things being played out without diminishing it and cutting right to another scene. We witness devil incarnate Suge knight as he deals with a money squanderer within his own circle by using brutish force and we see the reaction it had on Tupac. He wanted out, and after finishing the contractual duties he wanted to settle his own company.

The women, the glamour, the flossy lifestyle as he rocked his diamond studded DeathRow chain, and the West Coast-East Coast rivalry was the setting he was around in the last arc of his life. We see the brewing of the classic rivalry between him and his former friend Biggie Small (played by Jamal Woolard) after Tupac sustains bullet wounds at Quad studio. Amid Tupac's paranoia of getting set up and ambushed, the diss track "Hit 'Em Up" was employed, but it ends there and it doesn't quite simmer and only touches the surface of the rap beef between the two and their confidantes. In these final days of his life, the recurring theme in his music was of death, and they didn't show it. The waltz with death that he anticipated and the infatuation with it wasn't captured (for that reason he recorded over 700 songs as he was prophesying his untimely demise). If death was a reoccurring theme, the conclusive scene of the movie will have evoked a sense of true sadness, as easy as a Tupac song induced. In the fateful night in Las Vegas, Tupac and his entourage on the casino floor approached a Crip gang member and targeted him for stealing one of his homeboy's chains. From thenceforward, on the way to the club with Suge Knight the driver, Tupac was shot five times, ultimately dying seven days later. For some, the conclusion of him dying in the cold streets would bring some to tears, but for many others, as stated before, a sense of loss to the exceptional character of Tupac taken from us wasn't there.

While the movie was imperfect, superficial and only able to scratch the surface of the enigmatic man, the movie was exciting; particularly the music of his being played ("So Many Tears," "Dear Mama" and California Love) and finally seeing Tupac have his first Biopic. Did the movie scream "Thug Life" as passionately, or if I dare say, have more passion than Tupac as he said those iconic words? The lingering thoughts after seeing the movie would most likely disagree. As with most biopics, the outside layer of the human is easiest to capture, but finding the essence of the person is another question that ought to be asked.

3 stars out of 5.

Razor Ramon.