All Eyez on Me

A biographical film about Tupac Shakur. It opens in prison. A journalist is interviewing him, and the film uses that conversation as its frame, going back over his life from there. The childhood section is the strongest. His mother was a Black Panther, was tried while pregnant with him, and defended herself in court; the boy grows up inside that politics. Then come the school years, Baltimore, the arts school, dance and poetry classes, and a friendship with Jada Pinkett. From there the film moves quickly. Digital Underground, the first records, the parts in films, the money, the court cases, the shooting at the recording studio, prison, Death Row and Las Vegas. What the narrative is interested in is not the music but contradiction: the same man writes about his mother and about the street, and the film keeps that gap open without closing it. The pace is the problem. Too many years are covered and some periods pass in a single scene. Demetrius Shipp Jr. plays Tupac; the resemblance is striking and it was his first film. His father had worked as a producer with Tupac. Danai Gurira plays the mother. Benny Boom directed; he came from music videos. It was made after a long production history with several directors attached, and it did not go unchallenged: Jada Pinkett Smith publicly stated that scenes involving her were not accurate. Who it is for: anyone who wants to see the life behind the records. Who it is not for: anyone who knows the story well; the film hurries and stays on the surface of things it should stop for.