Notorious (3 Disc Unrated Collector's Edition) DVD Review
Posted by Jeremy Thomas on 05.04.2009
The story of the larger-then-life rapper makes its way to DVD; is it worth the price of a three-disc set?
Directed by: George Tillman, Jr. Written by: Reggie Rock Bythewood & Cheo Hodari Coker
Starring: Jamal Woolard - Christopher "Biggie" Wallace Angela Bassett - Voletta Wallace Anthony Mackie - Tupac Shakur Derek Luke - Sean Combs Naturi Naughton - Lil' Kim Antonique Smith - Faith Evans Christopher Wallace Jr. - Young Christopher Wallace Marc John Jefferies - Lil' Cease Edwin Freeman - Mister Cee Sean Ringgold - Suge Knight Kevin Phillips - Mark Pitts
Theatrical Presentation Rated R for pervasive language, some strong sexuality including dialogue, nudity, and for drug content
Musical biopics have gained quite a bit of steam over the last several years. Since Jamie Foxx won an Oscar portraying the legendary Ray Charles in 2004’s Ray, there have been a fair amount of films focusing on the life of geniuses in the recording industry from 2005’s Walk the Line about Johnny Cash to 2007’s wildly interpretive piece I’m Not There about Bob Dylan. That being the case, it is perhaps a surprise that given the popularity of hip-hop and rap, no one had gotten into the game of profiling the big names in that field yet. Certainly rap music has no dearth of larger-than-life personalities and talented artists, and among the forefront of that top group of rappers is Christopher “Biggie” Wallace. Wallace, who largely brought the East Coast rap scene back into relevance during the mid-to-late 90’s, has become iconic both due to his talent on the microphone, his lyrical skills and his part and subsequent death in the infamous East Coast/West Coast feud that also took the life of West Coaster Tupac Shakur. Several books and documentaries have been made about both aritst’s deaths, but until this year no major films had been made about their lives. Finally, in January Notorious made its way into theaters. Featuring newcomer Jamal Woolard, Angela Bassett and Derek Luke, the film won critical praise for Woolard’s breakout performance but did only average numbers at the box office. Fox Searchlight, who clearly believe strongly in the film, have released it now on DVD in both one and three-disc versions that feature the theatrical and unrated versions of the film, hoping that the celebrated musician’s life will appeal to fans on the small screen perhaps a bit better than it did on the big screen.
The Movie
Woolard stars as the late rapper himself, sharing the role with Biggie’s son Christopher for early scenes of the future hip-hop legend’s youth. Biggie grows up Christopher Wallace, an overweight kid in the 1980’s. He’s enamored with hip-hop from an early age, writing rap verses as a way to get his feelings out when he’s teased by girls at school or witness a fight between his mother, hard-working and straight-living Violetta (Bassett) and his father. He excels in school, but decides that to make it big he’ll need to find another way to do so. He begins hustling drugs, which eventually leads him into the music scene. Biggie eventually meets Sean “Puffy” Combs (Luke), an up-and-coming producer at Uptown Records, and Lil’ Kim (Naughton), who he begins a relationship with, even after he marries singer Faith Evans (Smith). The story continues through Biggie’s rise to stardom and the rise of Bad Boy Records with him, his association with Tupac (Mackie), the tensions of his personal life between Kin and Evans, and his involvement in the East-West feud that would culminate in his demise.
Notorious was penned by Coker and Get On The Bus scribe Reggie Rock Bythewood based on Coker’s book, which was drawn from interviews with several people in Wallace’s life and media reports. The script plays as a fairly by-the-numbers musical biopic, with the rise from a tough childhood, the success and womanizing, the drugs and the realization and redemption toward the end all firmly in place. It is to the credit of the writers that Wallace’s life isn’t presented in too much of a whitewash; he sells crack to a pregnant woman, is passionately unfaithful to his wife and attacks her when he suspects that she slept with Shakur, ignores his daughter and lets a friend go down for a three-year weapons charge that should have been his. Even still, many of these seem to be given an almost benign context within the movie, as if they were just mistakes made with better intentions of changing the world through rap. The worst thing the script does is press almost as much importance on the influence of Combs in Wallace’s life. Combs served as executive producer on the film, and it takes no hesitance in trying to present the mogul as the guiding light that showed Biggie “the way.” Combs is there trying to lead Wallace straight from the beginning of his career, and that aspect of the script seems somewhat disingenuous. While the film smartly tries not to posit theories about Biggie and Tupac’s deaths, it makes it quite clear that we’re seeing the East Coast version of what happened and not the West, as the assault and robbery on Tupac is presented as something that Wallace clearly had no idea about, and the later charges of his and Combs’s involvement the result of paranoia from Shakur, helped along by Death Row head Suge Knight. There are many good moments in the film, but a large percentage of them are the credit of something other than the script itself.
So where does the credit go? Largely, it falls on the broad shoulders of its star. Jamal Woodward, a rapper who goes by the stage name of “Gravy,” answered an open casting call for the part of Wallace, and it is clear that the filmmakers chose well. Woolard embodies Wallace’s swagger and brings all the right properties to the role. When rapping, Woolard manages Biggie’s loose lyrical style with ease, and when he’s not he alternates between imposing physicality and ineffable charm as demanded. It is a powerhouse performance from Woolard, especially considering it is his first acting performance. Woolard has that intangible that cannot be taught in how to submerge oneself inside the element of another, and he becomes Biggie in a very real way and keeps the audience believing in him the whole way through. His chief counterparts in Derek Luke and Angela Bassett provide good work as well, with Luke performing well despite the obvious whitewashing his role turns into and Bassett providing a solid counter to Woolard’s charm. The scenes between Bassett and Woolard are very real and emotional, and the two display a chemistry in their mother and son performances that can’t be denied. Of all the supporting roles, the best come from Anthony Mackie, who steals nearly every scene he can as Tupac, and Antonique Smith as Evans, who imbues her with grace and genuine love for the man behind larger-than-life rapper. Naturi Naughton does quite well with the role of Lil’ Kim but Christopher Jordan Wallace, while he looks the part of his father, has a ways to go if he wants to consider a film career as he stumbles playing the young Biggie.
Director George Tillman Jr., who is best known for his work behind the lens on the Cuba Gooding/Robert DeNiro film Men of Honor and 1997’s Soul Food, does a good job capturing the streets of New York circa the mid nineties. He gives it a nice level of grittiness and doesn’t hold back with trying to make the settings feel real. It doesn’t hurt that, with Combs and Violetta Wallace as producers he was likely able to use anything he wanted the entire Bad Boy Records catalog to provide a quality score, and with the help of cinematographer Michael Grady he shoots the film quite proficiently; in particular, the scenes where Wallace performs are electric. The biggest problem with Tillman’s direction is that he seems simply to be stringing along scenes in Wallace’s life like a series of reenactments. Tillman makes sure to provide us with insight into what made the man, and posits that perhaps the lack of a father figure led to Wallace wanting to be a man before he was ready to which led to many of the poor choices early on. Ultimately, the film could have been a much stronger picture if it had been willing to make some bolder choices, and while that undoubtedly lies with those who helped put it together from the producer’s chair, Tillman must also take this on, as it was his film to guide and he ends up guiding it into softball territory.
Film Rating: 7.5
The Video
Notorious is presented in a 2.40:1 anamorphic widescreen ratio, enhanced for widescreen televisions, and looks fantastic. Tillman and cinematographer Michael Grady film the gritty streets of New York with as much love of the city as they have knowledge of its seamy, gritty elements, and both of these come through quite nicely in the high-quality video transfer. The filmmakers' color palette of browns and cool blues comes across very nicely, and the many darker scenes that take place in clubs, recording studios and concerts are all very clear with well-defined delineation. There are no noticeable compression issues or signs of haloing, specks or film flaws, and not a speck of grain to be seen. In terms of visual details, this is one of the better DVD's to come along in a while.
Video Rating: 9.5
The Audio
The audio track is the standard Dolby Digital 5.1 track for English, with Dolby Stereo Surround in French and Spanish; subtitles are available in Spanish, French and English. The sound mix is very good as might be expected, with the rap performances coming through strong and what score there is by Danny Elfman mixing in seamlessly. Dialogue is nicely balanced with the score and ambient effects, providing an easy listening experience without a need to adjust the volume at any point. All of the channels get their times to shine, and while it does seem a bit like overkill once or twice there is little for anyone to complain about here.
Audio Rating: 8.0
The Packaging
The three-disc version of Notorious has been packaged within a standard snap case, featuring Woolard as Biggie in his pinstriped suit, shades and bowler hat against a white background; very clean and nicely-done. There’s a slip case over that featuring the same imagine, only against a black background with the rapper’s lyrics in silver surrounding him. The DVD menus are shifting still images set to a snippet of “Hypnotize” on both discs, and are very easy to navigate, with one glaring exception (discussed in the Special Features). All in all, it's a great presentation that goes hand-in-hand with the rest of the set.
Packaging Rating: 7.0
Special Features
Audio Commentary with Director George Tillman, Jr., Co-writers Reggie Rock Bythewood and Cheo Hodari Coker and Editor Dirk Westervelt: The first of the audio commentaries features Tillman, Blythewood, Coker and Westervelt, and provides a decent wealth of background information and anecdotes about making the film. Blythewood and Coker talk a lot about the process of writing the script, the choices they made and why, while Tillman and Westervelt cover the actual filming process. It’s definitely the more informative of the two tracks, and the quartet is never particularly dull to listen to.
Audio Commentary with Co-Manager/Producers Wayne Barrow and Mark Pitts and Biggie’s Mom/Producer Voletta Wallace: Wallace, Pitts and Barrow are very easy to listen to, and Wallace in particular is a fascinating personality and talks quite well. That’s the appeal of this track along with some information about the real Biggie, although things never get too terribly deep in the information stage. Mostly, this is just a fun listen, and between the two is definitely the less fascinating of the tracks, though that isn’t to say it’s bad by any means.
Behind the Scenes: The Making of NOTORIOUS: (27:22) This is, much as the title implies, the standard “making of” featurette. It starts with producers Wayne Barrow, Robert Teitel and Voletta Wallace, director George Tillman, Jr. talking about the project; Voletta Wallace states from the get-go that this is her project and that she wanted to tell a story no one had ever been able to tell about her son. They touch upon the casting, focusing of course on the casting of Woolard as Biggie; Tillman talks about using Malcolm X and Walk the Line as an inspiration for getting someone who may not look exactly like the real-life person who imitates, but instead finds the complexity of the man. We see shots of the open casting call, which is truly impressive in terms of seeing how many people showed up to try to land the role. Wallace and producer Mark Pitts talk about Woolard showing up and immediately wowing the crew and particularly Wallace herself. There are a lot of props given to Woolard, although it is deservedly so from all possible accounts and doesn’t seem fake or overdone. The praise for Sean Combs, on the other hand, seems to be a bit excessive, and much like the film it feels a bit like a whitewash here; similarly, Voletta is by and large treated like a saint by all involved. This is not to say she isn’t a great and strong woman, but it is admittedly surreal to hear her talking about herself in the third person and Angela Bassett talking about how intimidated she was by the concept of playing the role. They move on to talk about filming in New York on the very streets that Biggie dealt on and lived on, then move back to casting with Christopher Wallace, Jr.; there is a great, brief shot of the young actor and Woolard together, which really illustrates the physical similarities between them. The featurette moves on to touch on props, costuming and choreography, spending a brief amount of time on them without going too in-depth. There’s a lot of good information in here if one can get past the clear over-praising of certain individuals.
I Got a Story to Tell: The Lyrics of Biggie Smalls: (9:02) This particular short, much like the title suggests, focuses on Wallace’s impressive lyrical skills. There is a lot of praise toward the man himself of course—expected, all things considered, since his skills with words is what made him such an icon that he got his own biopic. Pitts, Barrow, New York DJ’s Mister Cee and DJ Enuff, Faith Evans and more talk about Wallace’s charm and private personality and how funny he could be with his rhymes. Wallace’s own recorded voice talks about why he tended to crack so many jokes in a nice moment, and is used later in the short as well to intro his strong storytelling capabilities. All in all, this provides a decent primer of analysis of the rapper’s skills, and with luck will inspire people to look closer into those skills.
Notorious Thugs: Casting the Film: (9:06) This short is honestly a little superfluous when considering that the making-of featurette focuses strongly on this, but this touches on the supporting roles such as Smith as Faith Evens and Naughton as Lil’ Kim. Casting directors Tracey Bird and Wendy McKenzie talk about casting the roles to some degree; again things get a little bit fluffy in terms of the praise, though we have some nice footage here such as clips of Smith’s and Naughton’s auditions and Evans herself talking about Smith. Obviously with Kim’s personal feelings about the movie we get no comments from her, which would have been interesting at the very least. The last bit focuses on Marc John Jeffries as Lil’ Cease, which plays fairly well.
Biggie Boot Camp: (6:49) This appears to have been a webisode by the end credits. George Tillman Jr. talks about how he put his actors through a three to four month “boot camp” to make sure that the actors were able to portray their real-life counterparts, including getting Woolard an acting coach and using choreographers, rapping coaches and more to teach the actors how to be accurate. Tillman talks about getting Woolard to watch specific movies to see how he should act, and having the actors watch lots of concert footage as well. In terms of the extra features this is not one of the most compelling, perhaps due to the single perspective that is provided. It certainly would have been more interesting to hear comments from Woolard and the rest of the cast about the process, but it’s far from unlistenable or particularly dull and works fine.
Anatomy of a B.I.G. Performance: (5:15) Another webisode, this has Tillman starting things off by talking about how few people got to see Biggie live, and this was something he hoped to offer in the film. They talk about how most of the performances in the film were based on specific concerts that the filmmakers had footage of; the “Party and Bullshit” sequence is discussed in some detail with history about it provided by the real Lil’ Cease and is actually quite interesting; we get a side-by-side comparison shot to show how similar they were. It moves onto “Warning,” again with side-by-side comparisons, and Tillman talks about how several of Biggie’s real crew were involved. “Juicy” is also talked about a bit. This is short, but well worth checking out if just for the side-by-sides to see how particular the crew were about making the shows accurate.
Party and Bullshit: (3:44) From the archive of Slim Pickins, this is recorded footage of the concert which the "Party and Bullshit" performance in the movie is based off. The audio and video quality is very low, but that's somewhat to be expected considering the technology of the era and the fact that this wasn't intended to be a professionally-done recording. Either way, it's great to see actual footage of Biggie performing, something many people have never had the chance to see. It also shows just how accurate Woolard was in his performance of the man, making it all the more impressive.
The B.I.G. Three-Sixty: This is one of the odder special features put out in some time. It features a 260 degree panorama of Wilshire and Fairfax, the intersection where Wallace was gunned down, which you control which way you're facing by your remote control. Each direction provides a certain number of featurettes related to the death scene, ranging from a minute to just over four. “Directing the Last Moments” features Tillman talking about how emotional shooting the death scene was and how much he tried to capture the proper feel of the scene, while “The Peterson” explores the party at the Peterson Museum that occurred before the shooting. "It Happened Right Here..." has Wayne Barrow showing us exactly where the shooting took place and “The Peterson Exit” offers a brief behind-the-scenes look at Wallace’s departure from the club before entering the car he would die in. “The Shooting” is the longest of the shorts, and has the crew talking about their difficult emotions behind filming the climactic scene. “The Impala” has Barrow showing us the car that the actor portraying the assassin is inside. “This Unfortunate Violent Act” features co-writer Blythewood talking about his feelings behind filming the scene and how they didn’t want to interject any theories about who was behind it because of the ongoing investigation. The last is entitled “The Window” and is frankly sort of an unnecessary effects short about how the shot the window of the car breaking. These are all too short to supply any great information, though “The Shooting” is quite interesting; the framing of it around the intersection is just a little morbid and off-putting. The whole thing probably would come off better without it and the unneeded animation.
Deleted Scenes: (12:16) There are nine deleted scenes and one extended scene here, each prefaced by a bit of the script complete with staging instructions. All of them have a bit before and after of the movie in order to give us context as to where they fit. Most of the scenes are good enough in execution, but none of them would have enhanced the movie; three are about the assassin and take place in various parts of the film, which would have added an unnecessary pall over the movie as a whole. The rest are again good enough in and of themselves but don’t build on the story enough to warrant the additional running time.
Trailers: (5:47) There are trailers for The Secret Life of Bees, the Angela Basset/Danny Glover/Julia Stiles thriller Gospel Hill and Fox Searchlight's Oscar baby Slumdog Millionaire. In addition, before the film on the first disc there are trailers for X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Valkyrie, The Wrestler and Seth Macfarlane's Cavalcade of Cartoon Comedy.
Digital Copy: Fox Searchlight has provided a digital copy of the film as the third disc, to be transferred onto a computer and then synched to an iPod, iPhone or other device. The process is quicker than some of the previous digital copies which is nice, and the play quality is as good as you can expect with a smaller screen.
Special Features Rating: 8.0
The 411: In creating the life of Biggie Smalls for the big screen, director George Tillman Jr. finds most of his strength in the standout debut performance of Jamal Woolard who handles the role of the rapper with amazing skill. Woolard is supported by strong performances by the rest of his supporting cast; unfortunately a largely by-the-numbers biopic script and a tendency to smooth over certain negative elements of Biggie's story don't give the cast the support they need. Still, the performances and the amazing rap scenes are more than enough to hold the movie up, creating something well-worth checking out. The DVD gets a high-quality audio and video transfer along with a good set of special features, making this a very decent choice of DVD's to add to one's collection especially if one is a fan of hip-hop and Christopher Wallace's in particular.
