This piece of steaming dreck is not only bad film making, it is morally corrupt. 50 Cent is a wooden actor, but then it's supposed to be about his life and no doubt he's just a wooden, psychopathic narcissist. Like the musical form he celebrates, his emotional range is as narrow as Freddy Kruger's fingernails. He's basically a thick thug with a sense of rhythm. The film, like gangsta rap, celebrates thruggery and violence, greed and cruelty.
The characters refer to themselves by the n-word so often you wonder if they really feel that way about themselves. I know, the use is supposed to be ironic, like bloke, or dude, but you know that can't really be the case. If white people are not allowed to use the word you know it still means what it always did. Women are called 'bitches.' What does that tell you? The flick seems to be saying: just act like a damn fool gangster, sell crack to your friends, shoot anybody you don't like, go to jail and you'll come out of it a star.
There's a telling moment early in the film at a time when crack is new on the scene, and one character, realizing it's enormous potential for profitability says, "This will get us out of the ghetto..." The exact opposite of the truth, crack locked thousands of helpless black youth in the ghetto permanently. Even the very few that ever made any money selling it were still locked in the ghetto and the hip-hop that celebrates that way of life locks thousands more in the ghetto. No wonder there's a plague of black-on-black murder in some of our major cities. Maybe a first step toward fixing this situation might be to denounce this kind of evil propaganda.
The characters refer to themselves by the n-word so often you wonder if they really feel that way about themselves. I know, the use is supposed to be ironic, like bloke, or dude, but you know that can't really be the case. If white people are not allowed to use the word you know it still means what it always did. Women are called 'bitches.' What does that tell you? The flick seems to be saying: just act like a damn fool gangster, sell crack to your friends, shoot anybody you don't like, go to jail and you'll come out of it a star.
There's a telling moment early in the film at a time when crack is new on the scene, and one character, realizing it's enormous potential for profitability says, "This will get us out of the ghetto..." The exact opposite of the truth, crack locked thousands of helpless black youth in the ghetto permanently. Even the very few that ever made any money selling it were still locked in the ghetto and the hip-hop that celebrates that way of life locks thousands more in the ghetto. No wonder there's a plague of black-on-black murder in some of our major cities. Maybe a first step toward fixing this situation might be to denounce this kind of evil propaganda.