8
Mile is Worth the Drive 8
Mile is Worth the DriveYo, yo, yo! MC Movie T in da house! Dodgin' the 5-0 to come up in here and give y'all the 411 on 8 Mile, Eminem's new joint playin' at your local Sony.
OK, let me explain. I have been driving around Caucasia for much of the afternoon, toying with the idea of writing my entire review for 8 Mile in the ... uh, shall we say, modern urban vernacular. I see enough movies with enough teenagers in enough shopping mall cineplexes year round that I think I could reasonably pull it off. But then again, I thought, "NAAAHHH! Keep it real, homey. Give it to 'em straight-up."
8 Mile is a surprisingly good movie, folks. This thing could have gone very wrong. Very wrong! It could have been another Cool as Ice or Disorderlies. Eminem could have been just another rapper posin' as an actor. His movie could have been just another jive, punk-ass, pretender of a film made just to sell a soundtrack album like the wretched Glitter was. But it's not. I'm not saying it's great or anything like that. It's essentially the Rocky story with two turntables and a microphone. But the film has heart and, best of all, it has some very passionate storytelling.
Eminem stars in the semi-autobiographical role of Rabbit, a white rapper from inner-city Detroit who wants to overcome his lower-class upbringing and get a recording contract. As the story begins, Rabbit is forced to move back in with his mother (Kim Basinger) in the trailer park where he grew up while he scrapes together enough cash to get his own place. If the entire story revolved around this son and this mother, I would have had poison pen ... er, keyboard at the ready. But, remarkably, it doesn't. The core of the film is the friendship of a group of five twentysomething friends who roll with Rabbit. Not a gang, but a group. Mekhi Phifer is excellent as Future, the group's leader, who is convinced that Rabbit has the rap skills to make it big in the music business. At the same time, a neighborhood hustler named Wink (Eugene Byrd) swears he has the connections in the biz to hook Eminem up with studio time, a demo, and the money.
Rabbit, of course, has local rivals who don't think a white boy can make it in the world of rap and hip hop. In an early challenge competition, Rabbit chokes and becomes a community joke. Then, he meets a skanky girl from around the way named Alex (Brittany Murphy, who I just want to bathe and take care of), who believes in him, his music, and his destiny. This all leads to a big, climactic "battle" on stage that will certainly Balboa-Clubber Lang proportions.
Yes, the structure of the film is very obvious. Every year, there are a dozen or so movies that follow the Rocky formula of an underdog facing impossible odds who, armed with the love of a good woman and a few friends' trust, must go into the arena and do the impossible. Most of these movies are lazy exercises in crap.
8 Mile succeeds because of four reasons. First and foremost, it has a director in Curtis Hanson who knows how to make a movie and how to pace a story. Hanson is the director of L.A. Confidential and Wonder Boys. Second, Hanson and his casting director have surrounded their first-time movie star with some excellent supporting actors and given their characters room to develop. Third, the script by Scott Silver does not ask Eminem to stretch in any way shape or form. Eminem is essentially playing himself here. And while he is laughable in the domestic scenes with his white-trash mother (who is tapping one of his friends from high school), he comes alive when he takes the stage. Finally, Hanson gets the absolute most from the film's Detroit setting. He finds the beauty in the neglected, dilapidated streets of Motown where every open business seems to sit adjacent to a shuttered restaurant or shop, and every neighborhood seems to have at least one boarded-up, burnt-out home.
Of course, not everything in the film works. I thought it was just laughable the juxtaposition of having Eminem be this guy who is constantly getting into violent fistfights and cursing his foes up and down, then it shows him being all tender and loving with his 6-year-old, super-cute sister. The film also has way too many scenes where something bad happens and everybody just starts wailing on each other. At times, I felt Hanson and Silver didn't trust the audience to weather the film's slower spots, so they through in a fight scene every five or 10 minutes to keep everyone watching.
But Hanson brings it all together in the end. Eminem is not one of my favorite celebrities, but he comes off pretty good here. The best thing I can about 8 Mile, though, is now that it is finally reaching theaters ... WE WON'T HAVE TO SEE ANY MORE OF THOSE ANNOYING, REPETITIVE COMMERCIALS!!! Could they possibly pump this movie any more? I mean, jeez, when my 89-year-old Grandmother starts asking me, "What is that movie with the song that goes: 'Lose yourself in the music, the moment, you own it," you know the marketing department has gone a little overboard.
8 Mile is rated R for violence, language, drug use, and sexuality.
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