Before I Self Destruct

I'm far from a 50 Cent fan but I was overall pretty impressed with this movie. It's a very standard hood/crime drama that doesn't exactly break much, if any new ground. There's lots of macho posturing and blood and even a gratuitous girl on girl scene. The plot kind of stagnates towards the middle of the film but still is able to stay interesting.

The acting is one of the more surprised positive aspects. Curtis is average-solid as usual but Clifton Powell really knocks it out of the park and none of the supporting cast is bad enough to ruin the movie, which is usually the case with similar movies.

If you're a fan of the genre it's worth taking a look at if its on Showtime or maybe even for a rental if you're also a 50 fan.

50 cent directed and starred in this movie because no one else would. The dialogue is terrible. The "plot" is disjointed. Narration was used very poorly. The sex scene was a joke. The target audience seems to be inner city youth and the message is to stay away from bad influences.

I guess when one's music career is not going so well one may be forced to find other outlets for one's creativity.

50 Cent has a lot to learn about film acting, directing, producing.....as a matter of fact, just stay out of it.

To the poor souls who are considering watching this on Netflix:Unless you hate yourself, do not waste your time on this junk.

I usually like to state the positive prior to the negative. This flic had so little production value that I am at a loss for props. Music tracks deserve ups. The fact that he did not make it "autobiographical" deserves ups. I have seen many community college media department films that scored better production points. Script, Acting, Cinematography, Lighting, Music fades and placement... all at "student" level. Not just bashing Mr. Jackson. I have deep appreciation and respect for his part in his audio artistic efforts. The overall concept of the story was not that bad either but I must say that for such a successful/talented audio artist, this film was a disgrace.

I saw this movie by mistake, I was browsing around, and started watching it from the beginning, thinking "the second this gets lame I'm turning it off". But alas, it was gritty, realistic and very engaging! A proper hood movie.

I never ever liked 50 cent, I always thought he was just this big mumbling beast, I never could figure out why people actually bought his records. I was full of prejudice before watching this one. REady, to watch something REAL if it looked like B.S.

Anyway, in this movie 50 cents actually acts. And when I say acts, I mean, he display tons different shades of emotion- him as well as his co-stars.(his brother, his mother, his hood friends down the street). And when I say he displays I'm not say he OVER-display, actually he's subtle.

The dialogs smell REAL from 10 miles, even the humor. Sometimes even unexpect great dry humor.

You feel really urban in this one.

The violence is realistic, and the feel is what I look for in a good Blaxplotion, I repeat a GOOD blaxploitation.

The only thing that's bad about this movie is the poster, which is really,really bad.

If this movie had another name attached to the directing/writing ....People would have taken this movie seriously.

Not because 50 direction and lead acting is bad CAUSE IT IS NOT. but because of the reputation 50 has: as a uni-emotional mumbling beast.

Had he used a pen-name for the director, and a pen-name for the writer, then this would movie would make all those "10 best hood movies" list. I have no doubt about that.

There's a scene when 50 cent had to shoot a gang member. There were 4/5 minutes of tension and suspense and fright, like I haven't felt in a long time in the genre. (this is due to the directing , acting, and location)

If the producers are listening, REMOVE THAT UGLY COVER, give a pen- name to the director and writer.. AND see this movie rise and finally take the proper CREDIT it fully deserves

if you like the genre I highly, highly recommend it. I'll def watch it again, like real, real soon.

This isn't the worst movie ever, nor is it as bad as I thought it would be. But it defiantly could have been better. One major problem with the movie is that it's to short and doesn't really have much going on. There's very little character development and for movie that's supposed to be a hood movie there's very little action. At times the movie just feels boring and to keep you entertained they either play loud rap music or have a sexual scene. If anything, the only reason this movie even seemed to receive any attention was because it stars 50 Cent and features a sex scene with some eye candy actress to turn on the fanboys. The movie just feels like one long video of 50 Cent showing how ''gangsta'' he is. And the ending to the movie feels very rushed and anti-climactic.