All Eyez on Me

There isn’t a rap­per with a life sto­ry more wor­thy of a biopic than Tupac Shakur. From being raised by Black Pan­thers to embark­ing on a social­ly-con­scious music career that some­how spi­ralled into a vicious con­tra­dic­to­ry gang­ster rap per­sona, Shakur packed a lot into his 25 years. To some he was a rev­o­lu­tion­ary who empow­ered black women, to oth­ers he was an incen­di­ary crim­i­nal who was con­vict­ed of sex­u­al assault. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, All Eyez on Me isn’t craft­ed with enough skill to prop­er­ly explore these contradictions.

The film opens at New York’s Rik­ers Island prison, where Shakur is serv­ing a sen­tence for sex­u­al assault – a charge he vehe­ment­ly denied right up until his untime­ly death in 1996. Shakur is con­duct­ing an inter­view with a reporter and reflect­ing on his life sto­ry, but ter­ri­ble edit­ing stops this nar­ra­tive struc­ture from ever real­ly working.

In the first five min­utes alone, the mud­dled film’s flash­backs cov­er four dif­fer­ent eras. In one scene we see Shakur as a small child, while in the next his moth­er Afeni (Danai Guri­ra, the film’s only sav­ing grace) is high on crack cocaine. It’s as if direc­tor Ben­ny Boom, who has spent his career direct­ing music videos for the likes of Ja Rule and Nic­ki Minaj, was furi­ous­ly read­ing the rap legend’s Wikipedia page on an iPhone off cam­era, des­per­ate to cram in as much as human­ly possible.

This stream-of-con­scious­ness approach cheap­ens Shakur’s rich back­sto­ry. Under stronger direc­tion, his Black Pan­ther roots and rad­i­cal anti-estab­lish­ment streak – in 1993 Shakur shot two off-duty white cops, whom he claimed were racial­ly accost­ing an inno­cent man – would have been at the beat­ing heart of the sto­ry. As it is they are mere flutters.

Demetrius Shipp Jr cer­tain­ly looks the part, but he lacks the rapper’s emo­tion­al intel­li­gence or vocal author­i­ty. The film pri­ori­tis­es moments (such as Shakur film­ing the icon­ic ​“I don’t give a fuck” mono­logue from 1992’s Juice) that are already all over YouTube, which makes Shipp’s act­ing feel like an imper­son­ation rather than an embod­i­ment. In the few scenes that aren’t shot-for-shot recre­ations of tele­vised moments from Shakur’s life, Shipp’s lines are cut off unex­pect­ed­ly, as if edi­tor Joel Cox is des­per­ate to keep things mov­ing. All good music biopics are built around their leads and All Eyez on Me doesn’t appear to have much faith in its Tupac.

Fol­low­ing the suc­cess of Straight Out­ta Comp­ton, Hol­ly­wood is new­ly invest­ed in telling hip hop sto­ries. Yet All Eyez on Me lacks any of that film’s pol­ish or heart. The dia­logue is so stunt­ed, Shipp’s Shakur is nev­er giv­en the chance to repli­cate the impas­sioned vocal rhythms of his inspi­ra­tion. Dominic L San­tana, who plays Death Row’s impe­ri­ous CEO Suge Knight, is also so wood­en you’ll start to won­der if the vicious man who once hung Vanil­la Ice off a sky­scraper was actu­al­ly some­body else.

The sup­port­ing cast is plen­ti­ful, with Shakur’s rela­tion­ships with actress Jada Pin­kett Smith, jailed rev­o­lu­tion­ary-activist-cum-step­dad Mutu­lu Shakur and the Noto­ri­ous B.I.G. (dis­tract­ing­ly reprised by Noto­ri­ous actor Jamal Woolard, who is now 41 and looks noth­ing like an imma­ture rap­per in his ear­ly twen­ties; Big­gie died at 24) all crammed in. But with so many inter­sect­ing sto­ry­lines, it’s hard to real­ly care about these friend­ships. They just aren’t giv­en enough time to breathe.

When tacky gospel music rings out as Tupac bleeds to death fol­low­ing a dri­ve-by shoot­ing on the Las Vegas strip, you won­der what could have been had a more accom­plished direc­tor and lead actor been giv­en the oppor­tu­ni­ty to tell such an incred­i­ble sto­ry. The defi­ant last words of the real-like Tupac, who was also a for­mi­da­ble actor, to a patrolling police offi­cer were ​“fuck you”. After two hours and twen­ty min­utes, you’ll want to scream out the same thing.