Notorious B.I.G.

when i first heard notorious b.i.g. at 13, i was immediately blown away. his flow was some of the best i have ever heard. when he passed away, it left a hole in the hip hop community that will never be filled again. this film takes a look at his life story. the film looks at his relationship with his mother, and the streets. two totally different worlds that biggie is deeply in love with. he starts out as a loving mamas boy and grows to a greatly respected drug dealer and extremely talented rapper. his skills blow away everyone in his neighborhood and soon catches the attention of an aspiring c.e.o. by the name of Sean "puffy" combs. Combs starts his own record label, Bad Boy records, and immediately signs biggie. from there its a roller coaster ride as biggie takes the hip hop world by storm. and mo' money mo' problems as his beef with tupac takes a tragic turn that changes the hip hop world forever. newcomer jamal woolard makes his big screen debut, and shines as biggie. he has a natural charisma that captures biggies essence in every way. angela bassett plays voletta wallace, biggies mom, and her performance is great as always. the rest of the cast does a surprisingly good job, playing their roles as real people, and not caricatures of famous people. this film ran at around 120 mins and felt real and i had a great time watching it. this film brought back so many memories of my teens and made me realize how much the world misses the notorious b.i.g.

Back in the 90's as a teen, I never really got in to Biggie's music or lyrics. I never knew the correlation between he and all these artists like "Puff Daddy" Faith Evans, Lil Kim all came up together. I never understood how the East Coast West Coast feud got started.

This film gave me a new respect for Christopher Wallace. His intelligence and how he tied that in to his passion for music and lyrics. He had a dream as a child and in the end he achieved that dream of not just becoming a success as a performer, but a success as a father to his children, a good son to his mom, and a good man to himself.

I love that line in the move "If you wanna change the world, First you've got to change yourself"

Inspirational film, even if you're not a fan of his music or hip hop, you can still appreciate the story behind this man.

That should have been the title of the movie. Everything about this movie glorified Big..... if he was a nerdy student - he's gonna the nerdiest student.... if he was a drug dealer - he was gonna be the biggest drug dealer - complete with him sitting in a dark room with that one light that shines down on the table (classic).... if he didn't know anything about Tupac's murder - then he's gonna appear as if he was absolutely oblivious to that entire situation.... not to mention one of the supporting characters in this movie, Kim.... if Kim was gonna be a ho - she's gonna be the dirtiest ho ever.... If I didn't know any better, I would assume the only way she came up was by f'king Biggie.... This is a one-sided, shallow view of a person's life. Biggie fans want to remember his legacy flawless and that can be understood. Sure why not? This movie was made for you..... It's a story told as though a mother is speaking of her lost son who could do no wrong.....

Recommendation: Why not learn who Biggie was by beefing up the content of the supporting cast.... his first baby's momma for starters, and what about other artists that he interacted with? We could have seen a more developed, well-rounded and truthful character. Possibly even learn something about him that hasn't already been discussed in magazines or on TV....

The rapper, much like a fellow form of entertainer the clown, is a persona that relies on masking weaker aspects of character and temperament in order to fulfil their role as exactly that—a person that people will be able to relate to or find solace within. Of course, comparing a rapper directly to a painted circus act only goes so far until all attempts at providing an ample analogy wear thin. Instead, rap is an artistic movement that attempts to convey the rags-to-riches story with poetry laced over simplistic musical backings built to elicit response of an audience out to either get down or simply share in that collective stream of pathos. Yet the masks that both wear nevertheless serve the same function; while the Notorious B.I.G. would eventually become key in a movement of hip-hop stars making music through the soul rather than pure social frustration, there nevertheless remains a code of conduct or, ethic to being a rap star that overrides any form of drama within the person's life to take centre-stage. Notorious takes the mask off.

Notorious then, which takes the form of a bio-pic documenting famed star Christopher "Biggie" Wallace's rise from the gutter is an unmasking of sorts that goes beyond the gold chains, sunglasses, sleek rhymes and ultra-cool persona to reveal the man behind the music. The concept of course is as old as boots, but too often it is the case that such ventures into famed celebrity lives are either told with no care for genuine character-investment or instead play far too loosely with the facts. It's a pleasure then that Notorious which is directed by George Tillman Jr. (his first feature film since the underrated Men of Honor in 2000) does well to balance both the facts and the drama to ample effect with no neglect at all given to the music that propelled Biggie to stardom. Instead, Notorious plays out like a substantive character drama that always keeps the focus on Christopher Wallace rather than Biggie Smalls, and the result is compelling in its ability to stuff in so much material into its runtime without seeming overly abundant or superfluous. Most importantly of all however is that Tillman's effort here resonates far more emotionally than one would expect; sure, the rags-to-riches story is fast becoming a sickly cliché, but Notorious remains true to its story regardless and ends up coming out feeling genuinely compelling without resorting to mundane and transparent devices.

No doubt key to the entire productions success however, regardless of how finely constructed the screenplay may be is the performance by leading man Jamal Woolard who not only embodies Christopher Wallace to a fine point, but also nails what is demanded of him when chants of "Biggie" take form. Indeed, much of Notorious' ability to keep things flowing and feeling fresh is through such instances where the drama is interlaced with Wallace's more public persona throughout the many musical interludes that transpire as the rapper makes a name for himself. Much also has to be said for Woolard's co-stars who range from friends and family to old and new lovers, some famous, some not so famous. The result is an ensemble that do well to shine on their own grounds but never get enough screen time to detract the attention away from the man himself. Of course, this does have some detrimental effect on some elements of the script's focus (namely involving his mother who battles breast cancer) but with a runtime already clocking in at two hours with very little throwaway material therein, one can't complain too much.

In the end it's obvious that existing fans of the Notorious B.I.G, Biggie Smalls, Christopher Wallace and all around hip-hop icon will no doubt find a lot more to enjoy here than casual onlookers, but even those with an affinity for these kinds of stories will find much to invest within here. Indeed, while a large portion of Notorious details the hardships that the young rapper had to overcome on his way to the top as well as many failings along the way also, it is this honest and compelling look at those words now infamously engrained within two of rap's most esteemed records that give Notorious all the flow and pathos of Biggie's work himself. And even if you can't appreciate that, then there's the fantastic soundtrack itself, the spot-on performances and a brief history lesson on one of the music industry's brightest and short-lived stars to enjoy.

• A review by Jamie Robert Ward (http://www.invocus.net)

MY girlfriend and I went to see this opening night and I was a little worried about the director and first time actor Jamal Woolard but it turned out to be a great film. Now i am a Biggie fan so you may think this is biased but it was a well done movie and showed you the life of biggie and how he made it. There is a couple things that i thought were not so good about the movie like go more in depth his younger years so we learn more about him and also go deeper into the feud with him and pac. But other than that Jamal Woolard gave a great performance as well as the rest of the cast. Now my girlfriend doesn't even like rap and she liked this movie so i would suggest it to anyone. I am surprised about the bad rating but i guess people hate on the best rapper of all time too much lol