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Craig Younkin
Movie Review
Notorious
By Craig Younkin Published January 20, 2009
US Release: January 16, 2009
Directed by: George Tillman Jr.
Starring: Angela Bassett , Derek Luke , Anthony Mackie , Jamal Woolard
R for pervasive language, some strong sexuality including dialogue, nudity, and for drug content.
Domestic Box Office: $36,842,118
Directed by: George Tillman Jr.
Starring: Angela Bassett , Derek Luke , Anthony Mackie , Jamal Woolard
R for pervasive language, some strong sexuality including dialogue, nudity, and for drug content.
Domestic Box Office: $36,842,118
B
Jamal Woolard is the key. He embodies the toughness, cuddly charisma, and sadness of a man trying to do good.
“Notorious” is a love letter from a mom to her gunned down son’s fans. Chris Wallace’s life was tragically cut short, and from this movie’s opinion quite needlessly, but there is more to chew on here than just the 1997 shooting. Wallace was a kid from Bed Stuy growing up without a father and with nothing to hold him down except the way of the streets. He sold drugs, got his girlfriend pregnant then left her and the baby, treated other women like crap, and then went on to form Bad Boy Records with Puffy where he sang about gunning people down and his own rap royalty. Not a lot to love but deep down this movie has a better purpose and despite feeling like every other bio-pic you’ve ever seen, it remains strong nonetheless.
From a young age, Wallace (played as a ten year old by Biggie’s real life kid Chris Jordan Wallace) looked destined to be 300 pounds. He lived with his mom (Angela Bassett), a strict woman from Jamaica who knew the pitfalls of their Bed Stuy neighborhood and so wouldn’t even let Chris out of the house unless it was to go to school. The call of money proved too strong though and soon he found himself dealing drugs. Jamal Woolard plays Biggie as a young adult, and here is where the movie takes shape. After knocking up his girlfriend and realizing that the drug game leads nowhere, he retreats to his second love, rhyming, and his talent leads him into the office of Sean “Puffy Combs” (Derek Luke) and the two make a pact to take the rap world by storm. Problems with women (Lil Kim, Faith Evans among them) ensue.
Tupac Shakur (Anthony Mackie) turns up later. At first things seem cool between the two but when the East vs. West coast feud breaks out, Shakur holds Biggie personally responsible for the repeated assassination attempts on his life. The screenplay, by Reggie Rock Bythewood and Cheo Hodari Choker, doesn’t really give us much background on what started the feud in the first place and the audience already knowing how this all ends doesn’t really do the movie any favors either. The rest is all standard musical bio-pic stuff (problems with women, problems with drugs) but what keeps this movie floating along is the glitz, sexiness, and danger of the rap world combined with the underlying story of a boy trying to learn how to become a man.
Jamal Woolard is the key to the movie's success though. He embodies the toughness, cuddly charisma, and sadness of a man trying to do good but more importantly when he rocks the microphone or wears the stylish clothes and chains, he owns those moments with royal authority. Luke and Mackie are also exciting to watch as Puffy and Shakur, though you wish they both had more to do. And the female cast couldn’t be better. Naturi Naughton is sexy and vindictive as Lil Kim, who became Biggie’s ho and artist but never his love. Antonique Smith is very good as Biggie's long suffering wife, slighted by his non-stop adultery. And Angela Bassett leaves a lasting impression as Voletta Wallace, who preached of a straight-laced and responsible path always.
In the end that path comes all too late and there was never any time to recover. “Notorious” is a movie more about the person than it is about the music. If you asked me to remember one song (other than “Notorious”) I probably couldn’t do it but the performances are terrific and the world it portrays not only looks good on film but also allows for a strong message as well. It’s not a great movie, but to start the year off, it’s a pretty good one.
From a young age, Wallace (played as a ten year old by Biggie’s real life kid Chris Jordan Wallace) looked destined to be 300 pounds. He lived with his mom (Angela Bassett), a strict woman from Jamaica who knew the pitfalls of their Bed Stuy neighborhood and so wouldn’t even let Chris out of the house unless it was to go to school. The call of money proved too strong though and soon he found himself dealing drugs. Jamal Woolard plays Biggie as a young adult, and here is where the movie takes shape. After knocking up his girlfriend and realizing that the drug game leads nowhere, he retreats to his second love, rhyming, and his talent leads him into the office of Sean “Puffy Combs” (Derek Luke) and the two make a pact to take the rap world by storm. Problems with women (Lil Kim, Faith Evans among them) ensue.
Tupac Shakur (Anthony Mackie) turns up later. At first things seem cool between the two but when the East vs. West coast feud breaks out, Shakur holds Biggie personally responsible for the repeated assassination attempts on his life. The screenplay, by Reggie Rock Bythewood and Cheo Hodari Choker, doesn’t really give us much background on what started the feud in the first place and the audience already knowing how this all ends doesn’t really do the movie any favors either. The rest is all standard musical bio-pic stuff (problems with women, problems with drugs) but what keeps this movie floating along is the glitz, sexiness, and danger of the rap world combined with the underlying story of a boy trying to learn how to become a man.
Jamal Woolard is the key to the movie's success though. He embodies the toughness, cuddly charisma, and sadness of a man trying to do good but more importantly when he rocks the microphone or wears the stylish clothes and chains, he owns those moments with royal authority. Luke and Mackie are also exciting to watch as Puffy and Shakur, though you wish they both had more to do. And the female cast couldn’t be better. Naturi Naughton is sexy and vindictive as Lil Kim, who became Biggie’s ho and artist but never his love. Antonique Smith is very good as Biggie's long suffering wife, slighted by his non-stop adultery. And Angela Bassett leaves a lasting impression as Voletta Wallace, who preached of a straight-laced and responsible path always.
In the end that path comes all too late and there was never any time to recover. “Notorious” is a movie more about the person than it is about the music. If you asked me to remember one song (other than “Notorious”) I probably couldn’t do it but the performances are terrific and the world it portrays not only looks good on film but also allows for a strong message as well. It’s not a great movie, but to start the year off, it’s a pretty good one.
Craig's Grade: B
Craig's Overall Grading: 340 graded movies
| A | 10.9% | |
| B | 41.8% | |
| C | 31.8% | |
| D | 15.3% | |
| F | 0.3% |
