120.
All Eyez On Me
7/10
This film is the true and untold story of Tupac Shakur, the rapper, poet, actor and activist for black rights. Named after his forth studio album, this movie was highly anticipated by his fans. I've loved two movie including rappers, on being 8 Mile with Eminem and the second was Get Rich or Die Trying with 50 Cent. If there was going to be anywhere near them, it would have to grip me from the beginning. A lot of people know the story of how Tupac's life ended, including me but it would be interesting to see the early years and what came in the middle. The murder still remains unsolved to this day, even if people have an idea of what happened. Instead of a full synopsis on the blog, I'll just be skimming over the main parts of the movie and focusing more on how it delivered the information needed to make the movie enjoyable. It needed to appeal to people that didn't know any of the story but also to the audience that have the knowledge but still want to be entertained. Let's put it on centre stage and see if it hits the right notes.
The film opens in a jail that Tupac is being held in and he's being interviewed by a documentary maker to get the real story behind Tupac's life. Tupac is being played by Demetrius Shipp Jr. and has come under a lot of scrutiny for how he acted in the role. Seemingly this is going to create a lot of flashbacks for us, in the way of Tupac telling the interviewer. Instantly we are back in 1971 New York with his mother being released from prison and he is being taught about black pride from his stepfather and mother. His stepfather is a wanted man by the FBI and is eventually caught after a heavy handed raid on Tupac's home. As he grows up, he distances himself from his mother's views and actions and moves out along with his sister. He even catches his mother buying drugs and acts violently towards the dealer. He takes his mother to find help for the addiction and we can already see the kind of man he is and how much his cares for his loved ones. He switches school a lot and in Baltimore he makes friends with a girl called Jada. This is actually Jada Pinkett-Smith, which I had no actual clue about and came as a shock that they were such close friends and maybe even in love.
The music begins when he joins his first label with a bunch of guys who love a smoke and love women even more. When he tries to branch out to become bigger, record labels won't take him on due to controversial songs such as 'Brenda's got a Baby', which was about a young girl, raped by her cousin and turned to prostitution and selling drugs in order to pay the bills. His argument is that these are real songs, songs from the hood and real stories being told when no one wants to hear them. When the attention is turned from that because they all agree is sounds good, they worry about how he focuses on women in a bad way, maybe because of the way he feels about his mother. This is tackled when he releases a song as a tribute for black women.
1991 brought about some roles in movies and collaborations with Biggie Smalls and creates as much praise for himself as controversy as he donates money to the poor black community. He has constant head butts with the police and is beaten by two racist police officers. In one case, he and his friend, see a young black man being beaten by two white men and once he produces a gun and shoots one in the leg, he finds out that they are of duty police men. He gets off with a caution as the men were breaking the law themselves for taking police property out of work grounds. When they try to make a public appearance at a town fair, men approach them to cause trouble and when someone fires a gun from the rival side, a young boy is killed, instantly causing the press to blame the terror on Tupac's antics. Tupac then becomes involved with a drug dealer in order to raise his profile in another city and things turn nasty when there is a falling out and the new man, Nigel, needs to stop his gang from killing Tupac. They still go against the orders though, but nothing much comes to boil. 1993 sees Tupac meet a girl who becomes obsessed with him and when he doesn't want anything further to come from it, she cries rape and a court case will be coming. Every scene is now flying back and fore between the story and the interview to remind us that it is Tupac telling this story. He's getting questioned about what was going through his head at the time and soon it moves back into another flashback. 1994 brings massive event as Tupac is ambushed in a hotel lobby on his was to meet Biggie Smalls. Three men shoot him five times, leaving him for dead and Tupac is taken upstairs to the party as some men don't look to concerned and the scene ends with use seeing a point of view shot from Tupac with Biggie looking into his eyes. He's taken to hospital and as Biggie tried to visit him, he is escorted away for not being family as Tupac panics and checks himself out after not feeling safe. Back to the trial and he is found not guilty of rape but guilty of harassment with a sentence of 18 months in prison. During the trial, he gives one last statement and tells the judge that in now part of the proceedings did he make eye contact with him. He doesn't care about the justice and his life is now in God's hands. This is now leaving the story up to date with the interviewer. So, from here on out we are simply seeing the story for what it is and no flash backs at all. While in the courtyard, music is being played and it's Biggie's new song, 'Who Shot Ya?'. He figures that this is a 'diss track' and completely loses him mind. He comes into contact with another inmate, he stepfather, who tells him to keep working. Mutulu, the stepfather later stabs a man who stood up to him and we see Tupac doesn't have it two easy as guards of different colours give him a beating. He sorts a deal with Suge Knight following his release from prison, to work underneath his label on the West Coast. With the likes of Snopp Dogg, Dr. Dre and more shown in shorter scenes, he releases the hit songs we have all heard in one way or another. His response to the 'diss track' is one of his own and this brings Jada back. Not liking the man he has now become and the fact he is flaunting an affair with Biggie's girl, she turns her back on him for good. While working for Suge, he sees another side of him, a brutal side that is plain for us to see as he calls out another member for stealing money until he orders is mean to give him a beat down.
Tupac's life is on the up when he meets another girl and after a chase, they finally get together and even engaged. After she meets his mother, all seems well in the house hold. His mother is now out of rehab and looks full of life once again but is worried for her son because the government will try anything to bring him down for his style. She wants him to use his fame for a higher purpose and he is a leader, but he is having none of it. He wants higher again, to produce his own label but instead Suge gives him partnership and to lead the East Side part of the label he is already working on. He's reminded that he is still in debt with Suge himself so he shouldn't take the offer too lightly. In 1996 the gang are in Las Vegas, watching a boxing match, again there is commotion when Tupac jumps a guy who earlier attacked his own team. Escaping to his hotel room, where is fiancé is waiting, he changes and heads out to the club. The future wife isn't too happy but he tells her that he will only be gone for a second and a scene gets created as both stand each side of the closed hotel room door. This would be to emphasise the last interaction that the two had together before the untimely death of the rapper. Stopped at a red light, a car pulls up and lays several bullets into Tupac's side of the car just before it pulls away. Suge rushes him to hospital where he is stopped by the police before the other members show up and one shows his own badge for them all to step down. Lying, bleeding out, Tupac's life drains from his face until the screen fades slowly to black.
The ending is a screen of text, depicting that 7 days later, Tupac lost his life and that the murder still remains unsolved to this day. With his discography and movie roles all earned before he was 25 years old, this rapper will for ever have a legacy. The film concludes with real life footage of Tupac Shakur telling the interviewer that there are people out there that know the real him and I'm sure there are.
All in all, this film was a decent watch but seemed longer than it needed to be for a movie that was constantly change its time line. For leaping years ahead time after time, there was still a long, messy screenplay for nearly two and a half hours. Jada Pinkett-Smith said this movie was a disaster but I wouldn't go that far. I still enjoyed most of it but there's a feeling that it would have worked better as a TV series. The movie didn't show how influential he was with her word and instead made him look like a silly spoiled brat and many think I has ruined the legacy. Overall it showed people shouldn't leave the cinema glamorising his life or hating him all the same. Instead they should know this was simply an attempt to show it all in one movie and it was too much to cover. This was simply the Hollywood story.
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