Country:
USA
Recognizable Faces:
Eminem
Mekhi Phifer
Brittany Murphy
Kim Basinger
Directed By:
Curtis Hanson
I have a love/hate relationship with Eminem. He's nothing short of a lyrical genius. His flow, his creativity and that persona of Slim Shady are something truly unique, that already granted him a place in hip-hop legacy. The man has a tremendous ego problem though. He's so obsessed with being taken seriously that he keeps building those Babylonian monuments to himself. 8 Mile gets the job done as a movie, but it's such a self-centered piece of work that it doesn't live up to Eminem's music in any way.
First of all, it's hilarious that Eminem believed anybody would think this is not a biopic. It's said to be "loosely based" around his life, it's not written by him, it's directed by Curtis Hanson (who made the terrific adaptation of L.A Confidential), but come on. Let's use common sense. It's about a young rapper, living on the wrong side of 8 Mile road in Detroit, in a trailer park with his mom, with who he has an abusive relationship. I'm ready to admit the possibility that this "hip-hop battle" contest plot never really happened and that he never met a New York-bound model, but it makes the offense even worse. It turns 8 Mile into that promotional tool that claims the courage it took to a young white man, to rise above in a world of black people.
What makes 8 Mile good is not Eminem, but rather Curtis Hanson. He's the real star of the show. While there's not a whole lot happening through the movie and that the only real plot elements turn around that Hollywoodian underdog beat-the-odds story, Hanson draws a bleak portrait of Detroit's youth, hungry for success, but dispossessed almost by birth. What they live doesn't look like your life and it sure as hell doesn't look like mine. They built up their own society, obey to their own set of rules and abide to their own vision of success. Watching 8 Mile won't make you dream of a better life, but might make you understand why rappers behave around the concept of celebrity. The true achievement of 8 Mile is to draw a realistic, reachable portrait of what a ghetto is. It had a surprising documentary value if you leave Eminem and his temples to himself out of the equation.
There aren't many movie like 8 Mile out there, explaining without any kind of prejudice or xenophobia, what life is in the street. It can be violent, it can be deadly, but what it is, is a bunch of kids that dream for a better life while ill-equipped to deal with reality. Considering that I'm obsessed with credible underdog stories, it has an interesting ring and a lasting appeal to me. It would be close to a classic if I didn't have the distant echoes of Eminem's aspiration to immortality in the background. I like the movie, I just don't love it. Somebody else, who's on screen, loved it so much that there's not much room to think anything about it. It was my second viewing and probably my last until there's nothing else on T.V, nothing to read or write and I have no video games to play. You get the point.
SCORE: 71%
First of all, it's hilarious that Eminem believed anybody would think this is not a biopic. It's said to be "loosely based" around his life, it's not written by him, it's directed by Curtis Hanson (who made the terrific adaptation of L.A Confidential), but come on. Let's use common sense. It's about a young rapper, living on the wrong side of 8 Mile road in Detroit, in a trailer park with his mom, with who he has an abusive relationship. I'm ready to admit the possibility that this "hip-hop battle" contest plot never really happened and that he never met a New York-bound model, but it makes the offense even worse. It turns 8 Mile into that promotional tool that claims the courage it took to a young white man, to rise above in a world of black people.
What makes 8 Mile good is not Eminem, but rather Curtis Hanson. He's the real star of the show. While there's not a whole lot happening through the movie and that the only real plot elements turn around that Hollywoodian underdog beat-the-odds story, Hanson draws a bleak portrait of Detroit's youth, hungry for success, but dispossessed almost by birth. What they live doesn't look like your life and it sure as hell doesn't look like mine. They built up their own society, obey to their own set of rules and abide to their own vision of success. Watching 8 Mile won't make you dream of a better life, but might make you understand why rappers behave around the concept of celebrity. The true achievement of 8 Mile is to draw a realistic, reachable portrait of what a ghetto is. It had a surprising documentary value if you leave Eminem and his temples to himself out of the equation.
There aren't many movie like 8 Mile out there, explaining without any kind of prejudice or xenophobia, what life is in the street. It can be violent, it can be deadly, but what it is, is a bunch of kids that dream for a better life while ill-equipped to deal with reality. Considering that I'm obsessed with credible underdog stories, it has an interesting ring and a lasting appeal to me. It would be close to a classic if I didn't have the distant echoes of Eminem's aspiration to immortality in the background. I like the movie, I just don't love it. Somebody else, who's on screen, loved it so much that there's not much room to think anything about it. It was my second viewing and probably my last until there's nothing else on T.V, nothing to read or write and I have no video games to play. You get the point.
SCORE: 71%
