Not bad

Rating: 7/10 (1 March 2005)

This is actually not a bad movie. It is a bit limited in scope, a week in the life of a young working-class guy living in a dilapidated part of Detroit. Split-up from his girlfriend, having to move back in with his Mum and her violent boyfriend in a trailer, fired from his job - at the start of the movie his life has hit rock bottom. All he has left are his buddies, and his only outlet is the rap scene where he is struggling to be accepted because he is white. And initially it goes wrong there too, when his talent fails him in a critical contest ('battle').
In the middle part of the film he slowly finds himself back, but it is not an easy road. He meets a girl and loses her again, there is violence with a competing rap gang, big trouble with his Mum and her nasty boyfriend, and he struggles in his new job in a steel factory.
Then, at the end, he 'finds himself', goes back into the rapping 'battles' and soundly defeats the reigning champion who is also the leader of the competing gang, and all should be well.
But is it? Many people call this a typical Hollywood story, but the film does actually not have the typical Hollywood ending: he doesn't get the girl and he only goes back to his mind-numbing job in the factory instead of breaking through as a rap star. He may still escape, but we don't get to see it and we will never know. Equally likely he stays stuck here for the rest of his life - the film doesn't tell us.
I think this is a fairly effective film with exactly the right bleak atmosphere, shot in the winter in an awful run-down part of Detroit, almost a slum. There is some good friendship and some nasty hatred and mindless violence. Eminem's acting is not all that bad given his lack of experience, although most of the time he is just in some kind of sullen mood. The actors playing his buddies keep him straight, but Kim Basinger is simply awful. An interesting glimpse of a sub-culture that many of us won't know at all.