All Eyez on Me ** (2017, Demetrius Shipp Jr, Danai Gurira, Kat Graham) – Movie Review

All eyez on newcomer Demetrius Shipp Jr’s sympathetic star turn as rapper Tupac Shakur and Shipp sails steadily through the movie and does a good job in a difficult role. This helps a lot, as the film is almost all about him, and his story is seen through his eyez. Not much balance there, then.

Unfolding in an seemingly endless series of flashbacks, with Tupac talking to an interviewer (Hill Harper) on camera, the tragic and depressing story is conventionally, and plainly told, but done with considerable authority, authenticity and conviction.

Dead at 25, Tupac’s short life is remarkably busy and eventful, making for an interesting, quite involving movie, though the film hardly tries at all to tackle all the controversies surrounding him. It is there just to celebrate him as a Nineties cultural icon and an enduring legend. Is it the true and untold story, it advertises? In the complete senses of the words, maybe it is neither.

Packed with guns, drugs, swearing, violence, nudity and sexuality, the poor family broken-home, rags-to-riches, live-fast-die-young, story seems conventionally and depressingly familiar. It is one man’s life, but it feels archetypal, even cliched. Maybe the movie just isn’t personal and individual enough.

Honestly, you get no real idea of why and how Tupac was so unusual and so controversial. By explaining him away, and rounding off his sharp corners, it stops him appearing unique. He just seems to want everything anyone might want, money, fame, success, beautiful women – and lots of all of them, an excess of them. That doesn’t seem anything particularly noble or special to make a film about. They succeed in merely making Tupac ordinary.

Danai Gurira puts a lot of power into her role as Tupac’s mum, Afeni, Kat Graham plays his pal Jada Pinkett, and Annie Ilonzeh plays his last girlfriend Kidada Jones, daughter of Quincy Jones. But the movie seems mostly about the men, with meaty support roles for Jamal Woolard as Biggie, Dominic L Santana as Suge Knight and Jamie Hector as Mutulu.

The screenplay by Jeremy Haft, Eddie Gonzalez and Steven Bagatourian tries hard to make Tupac likeable and sympathetic, and just misunderstood, but he still emerges from the script as a very damaged, hurt, angry and dangerous individual and a difficult man to love. Director Benny Boom keeps his film flowing and moving, and, with its strong production values and period sense, well above the level of a TV movie biopic.

© Derek Winnert 2017 Movie Review

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