A Rapper's Tale Larger Than Life

Published by: A.O. Scott
New York Times-Weekend Arts C1
January 16th, 2009

As soon as you read the first sentence of this article, you can tell how the reviewer feels about the film “Notorious.” A.O. Scott’s tone sounds disappointed because the movie ended up being a recap of Biggie Smalls’s life and how he became a rapper with the help of Sean Combs while also being a drug dealer at an early age. Scott feels that the movie was not as intense as the lyrics of his songs and the acting and the script was not as great as he thought it would be. But Scott then says the movie was not so bad, but he was expecting more of the film since Biggie Smalls is a great idol in today’s adolescent years.

Scott explained all the difficulties Biggie (Jamal Woolard) went through growing up in Brooklyn, NY and getting made fun of for his physical features and the absence of his father by the kids in school. Biggie had a child in his teenage years, got married at an early age with Faith Evans (Antonique Smith) and had another relationship with Lil Kim (Naturi Naughton). Lets not forget the major conflict of the film, which is Biggie’s rival Tupac. Scott mentions that the performance of Anthony Mackie (Tupac) and Derek Luke (Sean Combs) were nothing like the real life person of those artists today.

The “but” statement in this review is in the very last paragraph: “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…” (Scott, pg C6).

Scott summarizes the whole point of his review, but also saying that the movie is not that bad.