Odd mix of very good and very bad

Rating: Null/10 (23 March 2003)

Everything is good about this movie except the core concept.
The acting ranges from very good to astounding, the writing sometimes soars, cinematography and editing a pleasure to watch. Even a certain amount of the development is pretty good.
The faulty concept I'm referring to involves most of the elements of role and plot. The "love" interest is vapid (not the character, just the role, as developed), the main interpersonal conflict is pretty much a sterile, undeveloped "white-hats/black-hats" sort of thing that lacks real depth. Some might say the depiction of sordid white trash life teeters artfully on the brink; I say it falls squarely over that brink and into the abyss. Sorry, I'm not going to say you can find redemption there, "compassionate" though it might be to do so. You can hawk anything you like at me as heroism, but I might not buy it.
High points are actual performance footage. Also, Eminem's character pulls off a clever moral coup at the very end (which I won't reveal, of course). This was certainly a valiant effort to redeem all that had gone before, but not quite enough, in my book. I'm not just being facetious, by-the-way; it *was* pretty stunning. But it wasn't enough to cover the sins of the first 95% of the film, which pretty much showcases degradation, in a manner so raw as to dare itself to engineer a redemption against very hard odds. I suppose I should give this film *that*--in that respect, it was very ambitious, and that's admirable.
I guess there is one other aspect of this film that seems a little weird to me; the crafting of an image of a white boy being taken quite to the heart of the black urban community (though not without some struggle). An interesting idea, but I couldn't help but feel that only very careful artistry could mold such images and make them look as "slice o' life" as this film does. On one hand, this is a tribute to the artistry of this film, but on the other, it does mitigate against the idea that artists can always get their ways pushing any and all social envelopes with impunity.
Wow. I can't believe I've said so much about a movie that, in the end, I couldn't really bring myself to characterize as "good". Maybe that says something in itself.
See this movie if you want to see how far fine cinematic artistry will try to go to craft an image that would appear to spite social/racial convention in an elemental way. If you like rap music, just be aware there's only about 10 minutes of rapping in the whole movie (more if you count occasional vocal rap background music over silent segments), and that it's all rap of the antagonistic "challenge" variety, tearing down an opponent, full of filth, meanness, and venom, but sometimes so clever that you laugh out loud. The handful of belly laughs in this film didn't pay for all the cheepniz I had to put up with to get there.
Yo.