Go whiteboy, it's your birthday!

Rating: Null/10 (14 April 2003)

*slight spoilers about the ending which you already knew before seeing the movie*
After watching this, I was reminded of Eddie Murphy's stand-up act, making fun of the italians screaming "go Rockooooooo!" after Rocky defeats yet another Black Guy.
On one hand, the movie is well-shot and doesn't feel like an Eminem commercial. On the other, you KNOW that despite whatever appeareances, it IS an Eminem commercial. I could see in my mind a scene of a writer presenting his script to the movie label, and then a bunch of white executives/producers sitting around in a fancy meeting room, ivory backscratchers in one hand, scotch whiskeys in the other, and deciding to change the black lead to Eminem to make more money (after all, movie audiences don't respond well to minority actors), and hey, maybe linking it to an album! Things like that genuinely prevent me from completely marking out to a movie, they stay in the back of my head and are forever associated with it.
Now, on to the movie itself. Like I said, it's well-done. Every character's acting feels natural (probably because they're just supposed to be natural, there's no real acting involved), except Kim Basinger and Brittany Murphy, who can't possibly pass as "street" characters. The director probably thought their names would give the movie more credibility, but in the end it did more harm than good.
The movie builds up great, but kinda loses track in the final 30-40 minutes. It's hard to put into words how, it's just that you let yourself be lead all throughout without commenting "they should've done this, done that", and then it starts slowly derailing and you end up feeling it could've been great if only they did this or that. Things like pointless temper outbursts on the part of Eminem, bad dynamic in the plot progression, things that are only there to trigger the next event, even though they don't go with the flow of the movie, etc.
A few minor flaws do get to me. Like I already mentionned, this is Rapping Rocky. Except unlike boxing, where the winner is the guy left standing, the winner in the rap battles isn't as clearly defined. During the ending, Eminem "defeats" two other rappers, thanks to the vote-like cheering of the audience. Supposedly he won because everyone felt his lyrics were more powerful, except his lyrics weren't as good as Lyckety's or Lotto's. And yet you watch him advance to the next round. Odd. And whatever happened with his pregnant girlfriend? She stopped existing because Brittany Murphy showed up?
Anyway, it's a good movie, and worth watching if you can get over the fact that it's tied so close with the black community's equivalent of bubblegum pop music.