A Rapper’s Tale, Larger Than Life

By A. O. SCOTT
Published: January 16, 2009

Anyone looking for a dispassionate, evenhanded account of the life of Biggie Smalls, the Brooklyn-born rapper who was murdered in 1997 at the age of 24, will be disappointed, perhaps even dismayed, by “Notorious.” But why would anyone be looking for such a thing in the first place?

The movie, directed by George Tillman Jr. from a script by Reggie Rock Bythewood and Cheo Hodari Coker, may not be an authorized biography, but it is if anything less critical, less ambivalent, than some of Biggie’s own semi-autobiographical lyrics. The rapper’s mother, Voletta Wallace, and his friend Sean Combs are not only characters in “Notorious” but are also credited as producers. What they have produced is a messy, lively melodrama, reasonably faithful to the facts of Biggie’s life and wholeheartedly devoted to burnishing his myth.

Of course, disentangling fact from myth is not always easy. Hip-hop thrives on the tension between “realness” and embellishment, artfully blurring the line between raw testimony and fantastical exaggeration. Biggie Smalls, one of several pseudonyms acquired by Christopher Wallace in the course of his short, brilliant career, put himself forward both as a fearless street truth-teller and as an outsize character — a player in at least two senses of the word. Rather than peel away these layers of invention and self-disclosure, “Notorious” takes them all at face value, presenting its protagonist in an array of contrasting, sometimes contradictory identities.

He is a mama’s boy and a ladies’ man; a lovable teddy bear and a glowering criminal; a high-living celebrity and a neighborhood character — all this and more rolled up in the massive, slow-moving frame of Jamal Woolard, a rapper himself who pushes hard against his limitations as an actor and occasionally knocks them down. He is propped up by the work of some agile, more experienced supporting players, notably Angela Bassett as Ms. Wallace and Derek Luke as a genial and energetic Sean (Puffy) Combs.

The sullen reserve that has frequently characterized Mr. Combs in his more recent Diddy phase is nowhere in evidence. As played by the immensely likable Mr. Luke (“Antwone Fisher,” “Miracle at St. Anna”), Puffy Combs is a Horatio Algeresque entrepreneur, exhorting Biggie to dream big, to reach for the stars and even, God bless him, to “change the world.”

“We can’t change the world unless we change ourselves.” That line occurs twice in “Notorious,” and it’s not entirely clear what is meant, other than that the characters aspire to be better as well as richer and more famous. At times the movie seems to lump all those things together, to imply that celebrity, money, clothes and boundless sexual opportunity are not just the rewards reaped by talent but also visible signs of righteousness.

Which is not to say that Biggie doesn’t struggle. Early on, as an overweight, nerdy child (played by Biggie’s real-life son, Christopher Jordan Wallace), he is teased at school and stung by the absence of his father. A friend named Damion (Dennis L. A. White) brings him into the drug trade, and he and his girlfriend Jan (Julia Pace Mitchell) have a daughter while still in their teens.

Later his relationships with Lil’ Kim (Naturi Naughton) and his wife, Faith Evans (Antonique Smith), will have their moments of jealousy, rage and hurt. An early stint in prison in North Carolina gives Christopher a chance to reflect on his life and refine his rhyming skills, which prove to be his ticket out of poverty even as they affirm his commitment, at least rhetorically, to the high life of the criminal kingpin.

And its conflation of that life with the career of the hip-hop star proves to be this film’s canniest pop-cultural move. Mr. Woolard may bear a passing physical resemblance to Christopher Wallace, but his archetypal brothers are the likes of Edward G. Robinson and James Cagney. In its themes and its structure, “Notorious” is a half-knowing throwback to the Warner Brothers crime pictures of the 1930s and ’40s, the tale of a kid from the wrong side of the tracks who rises high — “Made it, Ma! Top of the world!” — and falls hard.

That it is also a true story produces an extra jolt of queasy, sometimes confusing fascination. Biggie Smalls’s best songs are so vivid — and the circumstances of their making are so vividly reconstructed here — that the usual nostalgic biopic haze never settles over “Notorious.” Instead you notice that Anthony Mackie, a superb actor (notably in Ryan Fleck’s “Half Nelson” and Kathryn Bigelow’s soon-to-be-

released “Hurt Locker”) doesn’t much resemble Tupac Shakur, the volatile rapper he plays.

And any hope you have that the movie might shed at least speculative light on the possibly linked deaths of Biggie and Tupac (investigated in Nick Broomfield’s provocative documentary “Biggie and Tupac”) are frustrated by its careful vagueness. There’s some attention given to the East Coast-West Coast feuding that shook up hip-hop in the 1990s, but not much new insight or perspective.

So “Notorious” settles into a curious comfort zone; it’s half pop fable, half naturalistic docudrama. Not a bad movie, but nowhere near as strong as its soundtrack. It does not explain its hero so much as revel in the memory of his many selves, teasing the audience with a promise of intimacy and understanding much as Biggie himself did, but without the same seductive payoff. The film’s tag line could be one of Biggie Smalls’s riddling, irresistible refrains: If you don’t know, now you know.

“Notorious” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian). It has sex, drug dealing, gunslinging and swearing.