Biggie & Tupac (2002)

Reel.com - Your Connection to the Movies

Advanced Search
Movie Matches
Site Map
Help

Biggie & Tupac (2002)
Starring: Tupac Shakur, Notorious B.I.G.
Director: Nick Broomfield
Synopsis: Documentarian Nick Broomfield once again thrusts himself into a controversial murder mystery involving two big-time musicians. Were the deaths of The Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur borne of bitter rivalry or were they strategic, business-related assassinations?
Runtime: 107 minutes
MPAA Rating: R
Genres: Documentary, Music



		Privacy Policy	Click to hide product formats

Description:	Format:	Buy:
Biggie and Tupac	DVD
Biggie and Tupac	VHS

DVD Review Critics Roundup

Biggie and Tupac

Nick Broomfield films all have one common problem—Nick Broomfield. Ostensibly his documentaries cover the sordid underside of America, tackling celebrity prostitution (Heidi Fleiss: Hollywood Madam), a doomed rock romance (Kurt and Courtney), and a Florida mass murderer (Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer). In reality, though, Broomfield's films feature himself as much their official subjects. That would be fine, were he as funny as Bowling for Columbine's Michael Moore. But Broomfield is a caricature of pomposity. As if his snooty voice-overs weren't annoying enough, the Briton sticks his balding head in almost every scene, looking down at those crazy Americans from an upturned nose.

Given Broomfield's sorry track record, many will have the knives sharpened for Bigge & Tupac even before they slide the DVD into their players. However, anybody adventurous enough to rent the title will be pleasantly surprised. Bigge & Tupac isn't just the least annoying film of Broomfield's career, it is, for the most part, a solid chunk of investigative journalism.

A perfect companion to the PBS Fronline special "LAPD Blues" and Randall Sullivan's book LAbyrinth, Biggie & Tupac dispels many misconceptions about the murders of Tupac Shakur and Christopher Wallace, aka "Notorious B.I.G." or "Biggie Smalls." Broomfield debunks the idea that the two rappers were products of a widespread conflict between East and West Coast hip-hop communities. This widely hyped conflict was actually a personal beef between California-based producer Marion "Suge" Knight and New York-based impresario Sean "Puff Daddy/P. Diddy" Combs.

Through various interviews, Broomfield shows how Tupac's behavior changed once he signed with Knight's Death Row Records. The director also explores why Tupac blamed Biggie, who was on Combs' Bad Boy Records, for a 1994 shooting that reportedly destroyed one of his testicles. According to Tupac's father, the testicle tale was completely false. Equally questionable was the source of Tupac's hatred for Biggie; apparently a jailhouse snitch told him that Smalls's associates were responsible for the hit, a tactic commonly used by the FBI to sew dissent among criminal groups.

The government-involvement angle sounds like conspiratorial hooey, until Broomfield acquires photos of Biggie taken by the FBI minutes before he was shot! The fact that the Feds' surveillance mysteriously stopped minutes before the bullets started flying is more than a little disturbing, so Broomfield calls the agent who took them—who just happens to be at Combs' nightclub shooting trial. "Who gave you this number?!" the agent asks Broomfield, whose unflappable haughtiness suddenly comes in handy. How the filmmaker gets his information adds even more mystery to Biggie & Tupac, which, until the cheesy ending praising Biggie's mother, is one of the more compelling documentaries of recent years.

Given its tantalizing subject matter, it's strange that Biggie & Tupac didn't get a wider release, showing in less than a dozen cities. But even though the 1.85:1 widescreen DVD is a sub-independent release with only Dolby 2.0 sound, it features as many extras as studio DVDs. Least necessary is the "Nick Broomfield Follow-up Interview." Given the fact that the entire film is narrated by Broomfield and also has a none-too-impressive commentary track by him, the inclusion of a video chat with the man just reinforces his reputation for self-aggrandizement.

More informative is the "Additional Information" extra, which contains extensive background dossiers on the film's major figures (as well as a few typos). Those interested in Tupac's music—which his mother refused to license to Broomfield—can check out his and Biggie's catalogs in the "Discography" section, which is, naturally, accompanied by a "Filmography" of Broomfield's works. More shameless is the plug for the Christopher Wallace Memorial Foundation, a charity set up by Biggie's mom; a good cause, surely, but the inclusion of it brings into question the objectivity of the entire film.

Further doubt is cast on Broomfield's neutrality by the footage he didn't include in Biggie & Tupac, viewable in the "Additional Scenes" feature. The most damning of these are the outtakes from Broomfield's prison-yard interview with Knight, in which the fearsome rap mogul talks lovingly about Shakur. Why did Broomfield cut out these comments? Was he afraid they might make Knight more sympathetic? If anything, hearing Knight affectionately reminisce about someone he may have helped murder is even more chilling than the bland speechifying included in the film. Broomfield's exclusion of these comments is manipulative and crass, tarnishing an otherwise gripping work of nonfiction.

— TOR THORSEN