THE EXPLOSIVE REVIEW

Starring: Jamal Woolard, Christopher Wallace Jr., Angela Bassett, Anthony Mackie, Derek Luke, Naturi Naughton, Antonique Smith, Marc John Jefferies, Edwin Freeman, Sean Ringgold, and Kevin Phillips.

Directed By: George Tillman, Jr.

Stats:
*Based on the book “Unbelievable: The Life, Death, and Afterlife of the Notorious B.I.G.” by Cheo Hedari Coker.

The Catch:
Biopic of the famous Brooklyn-born rapper, Notorious B.I.G. aka Christopher Wallace, from life to death.

Characters:
*Notorious B.I.G./Christopher Wallace (Jamal Woolard): The one and only infamous Biggie Smalls, head star of the picture.
*Voletta Wallace (Angela Bassett): Biggie’s Jamaican mother. You can tell Angela Bassett is going to be typecast in this type of role from now on, how sad.
*Tupac Shakur (Anthony Mackie): Biggie’s friend-turned-foe, the infamous, legendary, and sometimes very crazy Tupac Shakur.
*Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs (Derek Luke): Mr. Shiny Suit Man before he started the shiny suit stuff. He’s Biggie’s producer, boss, and mentor.
*Lil’ Kim (Naturi Naughton): The Marilyn Monroe of Hip Hop, as Biggie calls her, a sexy and conservative Black woman. She’s one of the best parts of the movie (you’ll find out why) and, fortunately, she’s prettier than the real Lil’ Kim.
*Faith Evans (Antonique Smith): Notorious B.I.G.’s wife and true romantic love affair. Here she is portrayed as a good girl, while in real life, that may not have been entirely accurate.
*Lil’ Cease (Marc John Jefferies): Biggie’s cousin - A man, or boy, who looks nothing like the real version of himself with the exception of his round head and face; he also doesn’t seem to age well over the course of 5-7 years.
*Mister Cee (Edwin Freeman): Associate Executive Producer for Notorious B.I.G.
*Suge Knight (Sean Ringgold): The West Coast version of Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs.
*Mark Pitts (Kevin Phillips): One of Biggie’s managers.

Story:
The film begins in 1983 with young Christopher Wallace still in elementary school, living with a Jamaican mother, writing songs, and being made fun of by school girls. After witnessing a fight between his mother and his father who abandoned him when he was much younger, he starts “hustling” in the streets, becoming involved in drugs.

Several years later, in 1990, Biggie is now 17, he and his best buddy D-Roc are hustling with Biggie’s cousin Lil’ Cease. While winning a rap competition on the streets, Biggie meets Lil’ Kim, who at the time was working a department store. After learning of Biggie’s drug involvement, his mother kicks him out in the streets where he sets out to find his own place and continue saving up his drug money. However, this ends him up in prison for 2 years. Once released, he visits his girlfriend Jan and their new daughter; his mother has also forgiven him Upon visiting his friends D-Roc and Lil’ Cease, he learns that they are recording a demo called “Microphone Murder” which they include him on.

The demo tape gets the attention of Motown producer, Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs, whom Biggie gets introduced to. Combs promises to turn Biggie into a millionaire by the time he’s 21, only if he leaves the drug game behind. What follows is chaos and success all mixed into one - The East Coast/West Coast war, a love triangle, and the rise of Bad Boy Records and Notorious B.I.G., leading up to this death.

Review:
“Notorious” satisfies in many ways and proves itself as a successful biopic, but it leaves some things untouched when they shouldn’t have been. It’s a surreal and interesting experience to see some talented actors bring characters like Tupac, Biggie, Puffy, Lil’ Kim, Faith Evans, Suge, and others to life on the big screen. The story itself is very nostalgic, especially for anyone who grew up in the 90s like myself.

Performances in “Notorious” are as good as they come by here. Jamal Woolard is fantastic as Biggie, with an almost striking resemblance to the original; Naturi Naughton brings Lil’ Kim to life here, she’s actually prettier than the real Lil’ Kim; Marc John Jefferies on the other hand doesn’t look much like Lil’ Cease; Antonique Smith is a flawless Faith Evans, looking and sounding exactly like her; Derek Luke does a fantastic portrayal of Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs with his acting, dancing, and personality yet he really looks nothing like the real ‘Puffy’; Angela Bassett as Voletta Wallace delivers her role just fine, but it’s the same overprotective mother we have seen her play in “Akeelah & The Bee”, it’s obvious she’s being typecast here and that hurts the film a slight bit; meanwhile, Anthony Mackie as Tupac Shakur and Sean Ringgold as Suge Knight resemble their characters close enough and deliver accurate performances of them.

While the film is rated R, even including a raw dirty nude scene between Lil’ Kim and Notorious B.I.G. (I’m not joking about this) which I didn’t even expect, I felt the story’s material wasn’t as ‘hard’ as it was supposed to be. For example, Biggie’s character had a much rougher aspect to him in real life than what is shown here. Secondly, the subplot of Lil’ Kim having Biggie’s kid aborted is completely left out, not to mention, there’s hardly any confrontation between Lil’ Kim and Faith Evans, while in real life, there was and these two hated each other. Other characters part of Biggie’s life such as 112, Ma$e, and Total make no appearance whatsoever here - While those people weren’t particularly significant to the story as say Lil’ Kim and Faith Evans, it would have helped to at least ‘acknowledge’ their existence for a brief cameo or two. At least they put in a 3 second cameo of Craig Mack. Out of them, I felt Ma$e definitely deserved to be acknowledged, being that he ended up being replaced as Puffy’s music video sidekick once Biggie went. Last but not least, there’s no mention anywhere of Puffy’s solo career move into the music industry which began two months before Biggie died, a simple congratulations from Biggie to Puffy on March 8th, 1997 would have been just fine and would have only taken a few seconds of screen time.

“Notorious” is a very nostalgic and enthralling biopic that ambitiously sets out to cover almost every angle and aspect of Biggie’s life. While it doesn’t grasp hold of everything that came and went during his rise to fame and the era he was apart of, it still stands as the closest portrayal of the infamous Notorious B.I.G. that entertains and educates on many levels.

Rating: ***1/2

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