In school we are indoctrinated with mythological stories about the founding fathers. Told tales of how Abe Lincoln walked 20 miles to return a penny and how George Washington was incapable of telling a lie. These stories are silly at best and jingoistic at worst. Little parables designed to lull us into the idea that the people who wrote the constitution were somehow superhuman and infallible.

So too is Notorious the Sean “Diddy” Comb’s produced biography of the late Christopher “The Notorious B.I.G.” Wallace.

This is not a film about the life and times of the slain rapper so much as it is a puff piece* about the alleged glamour of the hip-hop world. The real Wallace wrote taut lyrics dripping in melancholy over the poor choices that he regretted making. The movie just wants you to think, “Damn it feels good to be a gangster”.

There is no clear message to this film beyond, “CONSUME”. The closing scrawl informs the viewer that the life of Christopher Wallace proves that “No dream is too big”.

But what dream? To get stuff? Fast cars and loose women? A profound, almost crippling acquisition complex? After watching this movie I have literally no idea what Wallace’s “dream’ was. The filmmakers are either unable, or simply unwilling to articulate this dream beyond wanting a chain, a car, a fly bitch, and a platinum record.

And that’s all well and good I would like a number of those things myself, but all of those seem like means to an end. Did Wallace want validation? Did he want the approval of his deadbeat father? Did he want to make his mother proud? Did he want to take his children out of the ghetto? 

I have no idea. But there is a scene where he makes out with one girl while another fellates him, so there’s that.

And it’s a real shame because there is drama, and meaning, and art, and profound poetry to be found in the work and life of Wallace. Songs like, “Juicy” and “Party and Bullshit” detail a time, and place, with such vivid detail as to make them real. And even the more violent cuts like “Things Done Changed” display a level of nuance and authenticity that is sorely missing from most of those who came afterwards.

I honestly believe that there was a soul crying out for help in Wallace’s work, but you would never know that based upon this deep-as-a-thimble movie.

We meet all the players, Tupac Shakur, Kimberly “Lil’ Kim” Jones, Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs (not playing himself) Faith Hill, and a dozen others, but we never learn anything about anyone. Everything is surface here. You could learn more about these people from watching their music videos.

Even the confounding Jones is stripped of her libertine pseudo-feminist sexual empowerment. She’s just another dumb girl for Wallace to use and throw away. The sexual raps aren’t even her idea here. She’s just a puppet for Wallace, playing out his misogynistic fantasies over break beats.

And that’s the other thing, Wallace, as portrayed by newcomer Jamal “Gravy” Woolard, is a totally unlikable figure. He is selfish, moody, mean spirited, a deadbeat father (to several children), a cheating husband, a wife beater, and utterly lacking in depth. What’s more, the filmmakers chose to use Woolad’s voice instead of Wallace’s during the performances, thus leaving the actual man totally silent within the film.

This movie is confused on a very fundamental level. It begins the night of Wallace’s murder, and then flashes back (back to cali-cali) to Wallace’s early life where Wallace narrates his own story…until the final moments when Mrs. Wallace (Angela Basset, slumming) takes over to inform us that her son was a great man.

See, that’s a problem for me. Was Christopher Wallace a great man? Surely he was an influential artist and a moving poet, but he also sold crack to pregnant women, abused his lovers, helped to ignite a gang war that has taken hundreds, if not thousands of lives, and, if his lyrics are to be believed, killed many people in cold blood. Yes, “Suicidal Thoughts” is one of my favorite songs, but a role model Wallace is not.

But, a good film is a good film regardless of its moral compass and one conceivably could make a great film about how amazing Wallace was as a human being. The problem is, this just isn’t a very good film.

The writing is often painful with characters repeating song titles as if this gives the viewer some insight into where the songs came from. Other times, the dialogue is unintentionally hilarious with howlers like, “You ready to be a big time baller?”, “If you carrying my seed, you ARE my world!”, “Everyone was jocking him because he never lost a battle. It’s one thing to rhyme for yo’ boys it was another to battle” and “Honeys were jumping all over him and all the niggas gave him respect.”

The direction is pedestrian with glitz and glamour, but no real grit or dirt and Danny Elfman’s score is nothing short of embarrassing. Most of the cast appears to have been chosen because they resemble bizarro-world versions of the real life players, and the music cues seem more based on pushing the soundtrack album instead of creating period or mood.

There is a great movie in this story. But this ain’t it. It’s not even a very good advertisement for the old records.

THE DVD:

This DVD contains the theatrical cut of the film as well as an unrated extended cut. There is nothing huge gained or lost in the added 6 minutes, but it’s nice to have both versions made available on one release.

Other than the two cuts of the movie, the extras in this set are surprisingly thin.

There are 2 commentaries, one from the director, George Tillman Jr, screenwriters Reggie Rock Bythewood, and Cheo Hodari Coker, and editor Dirk Westervelt, and a second commentary with Volletta Wallace, and producers and Biggie managers Wayne Barrow and Mark Pitts. The second commentary is interesting because it allows for some of the people actually involved to speak, but the first is a bit of a bore.

On the second disc there are a number of bonus features, but nothing really outstanding. You have the usual making-of, the casting doc, a “biggie boot camp”, a short of Woolard’s performance, and a piece about recreating some of Wallace’s live shows.

There is also a really weird little feature that takes you 360 degrees around the scene of Wallace’s murder. It’ an interesting concept that elevates the fairly mundane interview footage within, but it’s also a bit cumbersome in its design.

The best feature is a short 10-minute clip about Wallace’s lyrics. More insight into the art might have made this disc a buy, as it stands, it’s really a rental set.

Conclusion:

This film is unable to do with words and images what Wallace so perfectly captured with his rhymes. You’ll learn nothing, and feel more than a little dirty and the ghoulish death obsession running through the feature.

By trying to white wash Wallace the filmmakers have completely missed the point.

*sorry, the pun was too easy