Ahoy, squirts! Quint here to present our man Capone once more. He drooled over Sarah Silverman yesterday with his JESUS IS MAGIC review and now he's back to drool over Fiddy Cent and Terrence Howard. Enjoy Capone's thoughts on the flick!!
Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago here. Alright all you pimps and ho’s, the time has come to throw down the fictionalized life story of top rap dog 50 Cent (aka Curtis Jackson). While Get Rich or Die Tryin’ doesn’t quite reach the level and emotional honestly (relatively speaking) of Eminem’s 8 Mile, it still manages to do an admirable job of telling a ghetto-to-ghetto-fabulous story with the help of some outstanding supporting performances and the great, 56-year-old Irish director Jim Sheridan (In America, My Left Foot, In the Name of the Father). In many ways, Sheridan isn’t straying that far from films he’s made before about underprivileged people fighting their way to prominence, and the move to the streets of Queens suits him.
After a thunderous opening credits sequence, we meet Marcus (Fiddy), whose life story is told to us in flashback form after getting gunning down. His drug-dealing mother was murdered when he is just a boy, and he vowed to get revenge on those who killed her. While he tries desperately to stay out of the drug-dealing game, Marcus finds that drugs are the only way to make any money in his neighborhood. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (a recent addition to the “Lost” cast) plays Majesic, one of the top dogs in the drug trade and Marcus’ boss. Bill Duke plays drug kingpin Levar, whose motivation for protecting and supporting Marcus remain a secret. As he gets older, Marcus finds he has a talent for rapping and attempts to leave the drug life behind and become a hip-hop artist. He is reunited with a childhood sweetheart (Joy Bryant), giving him the proper motivation to move out of his dangerous lifestyle.
The jury is still out on whether 50 Cent is a good actor. I’d say he’s about halfway to being compelling. I’m more impressed with how willing he is, especially with his tough-guy persona such an important part of his image, to appear sensitive and weak when it’s necessary. The film spends a great deal of time watching Marcus recover after being shot nine times (as 50 Cent was), and the process is slow and painful. Another sequence involving the attempted murder of Marcus in a prison shower is also shockingly realistic. It’s in this scene that Marcus meets his future manager (and fellow inmate) Bama (the actor of the year Terrence Howard). Howard only appears in the second half of the film, but his presence elevates Get Rich considerably. Bama’s moral code is simple. He protects those he loves, and kills anyone that threatens them. It’s a live-wire role that does nothing but add credibility to the film and another great performance for Howard.
Despite the many killings and drug dealings, Get Rich or Die Tryin’ doesn’t seem to be promoting the lifestyle. Marcus’ somewhat bland narration tells us that dealing drugs doesn’t really pay that well (about minimum wage, when you do the math), but it’s better than being broke. I’m not sure the film tackles any new ground (not the way Howard’s superior Hustle & Flow showed the pimp-to-rapper transition), but that doesn’t stop it from being a decent work. The one thing Get Rich could use some more of is actual music. One of the best things about 8 Mile was the abundance of tunes, and while we get a lot of background music and rapping from other artists, 50’s music is strangely buried. Still, what’s here is solid stuff, bordering on cliché at times, but still watchable.
