None seeing eyez

coreyjdenford

score 4/10

This review of All Eyez On Me is spoiler free

** (2/5)

TUPAC SHAKUR. EVERYONE knows his name, everyone knows his legacy. The prolific rapper, actor, urban poet and activist may have had a short career spanning only nine years from 1987, to his death in 1996, but in that time he became one of the most recognizable and most influential people in the world. Until someone with a gun brought his run to an end – he was just 25 years old.

Two decades on, and an unsolved case later the truth of his life comes out, in All Eyez On Me and it turns out - backstage his life wasn't as perfect as you may think. He grew up in East Harlem to an activist mother and a militant step-father; he went to a normal school and dreamed of being a revolutionary. Showing this in the opening is a promising start, which director Benny Boom whisks by in a wicked pace. The film skips to his teenage years he's surrounded by violence and drugs which his mother (Danai Gurira) resorts to. A by the numbers plot which sadly takes a formulaic turn as it speedily heads towards a downward spiral.

Unlike the hardcore lyricist himself the film suffers from backstage problems. Boom's style of directing is a little heavy-handed; sure enough the idea is fresh as there have been plenty of films like this before there was Notorious and Straight Outta Compton. There's no light touch here, even the deviation between light-hearted comedy and serious melodrama is poorly handled. The shaky editing and the poor screenplay are no help either which leaves the film an uninspiring mess which is something the man himself was not.

Albeit, newcomer Demetrius Shipp Jr. is fantastic as Shakur, there's emotion in his performance. From the violence surrounding his early years, through his mother in rehab to fighting his own battles, he's brilliant. And there are excellent efforts from his supporting cast too, such as Gurira, Kat Graham and Jamal Woolard who does an honest job playing Biggie.

These efforts lift the film's spirit into trying sentiment in the third act, in the run up to Shakur's last moments there's an instrumental soundtrack to perhaps get the tears flowing. But after the previous acts being poorly executed this is perhaps left unearned. All Eyez On Me is a poorly executed and overlong biopic about a short, yet shining career of a seemingly perfect man that rubs off all the heart and soul of his lyrics. Tupac deserves a biopic as perfectly polished as himself, too bad this isn't it.

VERDICT: This offers a great cast and sterling performances, but sadly leaves an uninspiring stench over what was once a shimmering career.

coreyjdenford 30 June 2017

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw3742385/