Notorious

Brooklyn-raised rapper Christopher 'Biggie Smalls' Wallace (or 'The Notorious B.I.G') was murdered in 1997 at the age of just 24, and this account of his short life has been some time coming. It's an over-embellished, inflated tale - in nature much like the tone of his rhymes; full of braggadocio and big-talk. But there's something rather splendid about it too. He lived a life of some contradiction: a charming thug, close to his mother, but with an eye for the ladies. Here, he's played with panache by Jamal Woolard, supported by Angela Bassett (as his mother) and Derek Luke (as Sean 'Puffy' Combs), both encouraging their boy, their protege to aim high. We follow him from geeky teen to his entanglement with drugs and his fiery relationships with Lil'Kim (Naturi Naughton) and Faith Evans (Antonique Smith). There is crime and prison and hip-hop and the sense of a man pulling himself up by his bootstraps. There's also a little delving into the East Coast-West Coast feud, and the line that can be drawn between the murder of Smalls and that of fellow rapper Tupac Shakur. But there is little explanation, little new light to shed. Instead, this is the rekindling of a memory, a sepia-tinged biopic to - at long last - set a rap star up there beside the Johnny Cashes and the Ray Charleses of this world. ·