But I gotta mention a couple unintentionally funny parts.
GET RICH OR DIE TRYIN MOVIEICON MOVIE
Most of the movie is competent and some of it is very well executed. Looking at the cover of the DVD, where he holds a baby and has a completely expressionless face, I was convinced he was too bad of an actor to even pull off a still photo. Honestly he didn’t bother me that much in the movie, definitely not as much as I was expecting. He’s at least on the level of Michael Jordan in SPACE JAM as far as non-actors go, although way less charismatic. There are a couple hilariously emotionless line deliveries like when he’s laying face down in a prison shower wondering why Terence Howard saved him from getting shivved and he says, “Why.” But I’ll give it to him, he’s not that bad most of the time. There’s dialogue in the movie about how Marcus keeps all his emotions inside, which is supposed to explain the fact that he can’t emote with his face any more than he can with his rapping.
I was happy for Bill Duke because he got to play a drug lord instead of a commanding officer and because he got to do a froggy voice, which might have been fun for him, I don’t know.
In fact he has to wear beat up old hand-me-downs with a hole in the sole (I’m not sure why he can’t just keep wearing the ones he has.) There’s a scene where he stares in a window at some $30 sneakers he can’t afford and this is offered as the explanation for why he starts selling coke on the corner.Īfter a while of course they have one of those CONAN THE BARBARIAN style transitions from child to man and we get 2005 50 Cent playing mid-to-late ’90s Marcus, leading a small crew working for Bill Duke. When his mom is murdered and he has to go live in a crowded house with his grandparents it’s very upsetting to him because 1) his mom was murdered and 2) he has to wear old shoes. His mom is a drug dealer and he likes that because she buys him nice shoes. He also has the exact same level of rapping talent (not much) and there are some cute scenes where he sits in his room with a little microphone and tape recorder making sex raps, talking about things he doesn’t really understand. The actor playing young Marcus is a good likeness and a better actor than 50. Then Marcus gets shot and his life flashes before him in the form of him narrating his life story. It actually starts out as a pretty decent crime movie, starting with 50 – playing an alternate universe version of himself named Marcus aka Little Caesar – and Terence D. The movie tries to recreate the 8 MILE formula (acclaimed director + semi-autobiographical tale of Detroit rapper = surprisingly good movie, they hope). Of course, coming up from the ghetto is a common theme in hip hop, and this movie does an okay job of explaining why growing up poor in a family of criminals could make you obsess over money. Thanks for your help in this important cause. “Dear consumer, I don’t give a shit about music, I don’t give a shit about hip hop, please buy my product because I want to be even richer. I wonder how it would go over if he put a sticker on the front of all his albums explaining that. It ends with the quote, “I never got into it for the music. Had he used his fame to give back to the community, strategically getting Apple to help the poor catch up technologically with the rest of American society and build a better future? Maybe, but he never mentions anything like that in the article.
When I read about his deal with Apple to sponsor a line of low-cost computers aimed at the inner city, I wondered if maybe he was smarter than he was letting on in all his music and interviews. But in a profile in Forbes magazine he talked about his albums and all his other products (a record label with all his buddies on it, a line of clothes, a line of Reebok sneakers, a flavor of VitaminWater, a video game, a ghost-written autobiography) as a continuation of the drug dealing he did starting at the age of 11. Pretty popular, too – the one this movie’s named after went six times platinum.
I mean technically you might think he was one because he’s released rap albums. 50 Cent, aka Curtis “Mumbles” Jackson, is not a rapper.