Biggie & Tupac

From the title one could be forgiven for thinking this is the latest buddy movie doing the rounds. It kinda is, for a while. Then we are involved in the haunting conspiracies surrounding the breakdown of a close friendship and the death of first one then the other.

"Tupac Shakur killed Sept 7, 1996. Biggie Smalls killed March 9, 1997"

From the outset this film is slow-moving and lumbers toward a conclusion that is quite a let down, considering the build up. Nick Broomfield, documentary filmmaker of Kurt and Courtney, attempts to unearth a conspiracy behind the deaths of two heavy hitters in the rap world, but inevitably ends up portraying an ill-directed witchhunt that ends up having answered very few questions it asked to begin with. In his pursuit of answers he visits neighbourhoods frequented by the pair whilst alive, attempting to talk to people who knew the victims, more often than not leading the ‘witnesses’ to get juicy morsels for the camera. The truth is he comes across as looking for something and, upon finding nothing, must justify his being there with speculation.

With such a large string of documentaries behind him, it’s obvious he knows by now the techniques for extracting worthy titbits, but when all pieced together the whole story finds us with very little more than we already knew. Fans will probably enjoy the grainy and blurred videotape of early performances and get-togethers, but for anyone interested in good documentary, this will most likely leave you wishing you hadn’t bothered.

There can be little doubt that these two performers had their legions of fans – not many performers are still releasing and selling music so long after their demise – but even they will be left bereft of actual content in this 107 minute documentary.

Being a doco, there are the compulsory hand-held camera shots everywhere with interviews conducted comfortably on the tripod. In this regard it looks like any other doco. However, the use of ‘copied from copies’ videotape and grainy photos is just too prevalent to keep the eye unaffected. This appears to be a deliberate usage by Broomfield to make the film appear grittier or at street level, but just ends up irritating the viewer. There are far too many instances of filler material, interviews held just a little longer than need be and useless information delivered repeatedly that contribute to making the piece around 25 minutes longer than it should have been.

Bearing in mind it’s a hand-held camera, shadows have very little detail within and a lot of the blacks come across greenish. Flesh tones come across well, but they are often times poorly lit, giving the expanse of African American skin (around 95% of all skin tone in the film) a washed out look which is possibly another attempt at ‘gritty’. Most of the footage is watchable, but could have been better edited to exclude the unnecessary and keep the piece moving. At times we feel we’re going in circles as we watch one fruitless interview attempt after another.

As to aspect ratio, we only get a 4:3 transfer with no enhancement (naturally) so it looks like it was made for TV, though I doubt anyone but SBS would show it.

Dolby Digital 2.0 serves the purpose of the film, but you could be forgiven for thinking a music documentary should have the best possible sound.

Being a music documentary of two fairly prolific recording artists, it is disappointing to hear the same eight bar piano/synthesizer riff turning up every transition within the doco. Plus we get it on all the menus as well, so we’re thoroughly sick of it way before we’ve heard it for the last time.

Broomfield himself narrates, and his voice has a strange accent or accent conglomerate that gives it a very irritating edge after only moments of hearing it for the first time. Through both footage and narration he repeats himself frequently, further lending credence to a better piece being shorter. His dialogue with people is at once both stilted and awkward and a little smug, which is abhorent, yet somehow favoured by most investigative journalists.

At least the sound effects are as recorded in the street and nothing has been added, which is one thing in its favour. The other is the interview with Tupac’s biological father, Billy Garland. He is definitely the most articulate and interesting of the interviewees and, due to this, Broomfield doesn’t need to pad the conversation with conjecture or speculation to direct the dialogue in the direction he wants it to go.

There are multiple extras here which include Animated Menus and an Audio Commentary by Broomfield in which he repeats himself yet again and doesn’t give us much more than he already has with his documentary commentary (contained, naturally, within the doco). There are over 45 minutes of Additional Scenes which have been removed due to their boring nature, but might help someone doing a school project wring that last shred of useless information out of the piece. Discographies of Tupac and Biggie and a Filmography of Broomfield are included, as is a 13 and a half minute interview with Broomfield in which he repeats himself again, but does give us a little bit more info about the case and a sort of update since completion of the film. A four page fact file about the Christopher Wallace (a.k.a. Biggie Smalls) Memorial Foundation and two pages of additional info on each dead man complete the extras, but for Trailers of upcoming releases. These are for the awesome film Donnie Darko, plus 24 Hour Party People and the superb Spirited Away.

All up it doesn’t add much to the film that you won’t learn watching the film, so doesn’t really count for much. (The Spirited Away trailer did warrant a second look though).

Even if I was a fan of either artist, I doubt I would have been too impressed by this collection of useless interviews and filler material. There are some interesting things uncovered that would warrant further investigation, but these aren’t pursued doggedly enough to gather all the answers. It’s a sad tale, that of these two friends divided before their murders and the conspiracies and underground accounts are well documented, but there isn’t enough of this story to justify the 107 minute length. With some clever editing, this piece would have succeeded very well in a hour, but due to its length becomes drawn out and our interest wavers.

The music is poorly treated, as is the video quality making this urban tragedy less interesting to follow than it could have been.