Pimpin' ain't easy and, apparently, neither is acting - even when the role is autobiographical.
Hip hop superstar Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson found this out the hard way with his starring role in "Get Rich or Die Tryin'," a film that not only shares its name with his breakout 2003 album, but also chronicles much of Jackson's life from a disturbed childhood to his rocky rise to fame.
Set within the context of a thinly fictitious storyline, Jackson's character Marcus is born to a crack-dealing mother and nonexistent father in the rough environs of mid-1970s Queens. Raised by his grandparents after his mother's mysterious death, Marcus resorts to a life of hustling to supplement his high-minded aspirations for a better life.
When that gig lands him in jail, however, Marcus begins a personal quest to turn his lifelong passion, rap music, into a career that will get him off of the streets and out of the world of organized crime.
Sound familiar? It should. "Get Rich" mirrors virtually every major event in Jackson's early life when cocaine and lock-down - not Ja Rule - were the biggest opponents 50 Cent faced.
Surprisingly, though he was intimately acquainted with the subject matter, Jackson can't pull off a believable performance as himself. That tough gangsta persona might fascinate and engross the TRL viewership, but stony, one-faceted facades don't translate as well into film; two hours of dialogue-free shots of Jackson gritting his teeth and staring pensively into space ? ¬a Brad Pitt in "Troy" do not qualify as quality entertainment.
With the exception of a single tear during what was supposed to be the movie's gut-wrenching turning point, viewers can't get a real emotion - much less a dollar - out of Jackson's performance. The whole point of "Get Rich" is to show us the softer side of a hip hop megastar, and though the individual plot points may give viewers a better understanding of Jackson's background, the film is ultimately nothing more than a protracted slideshow of mug shots.
But Jackson's subpar acting certainly wasn't the only thing that tainted the all-around lackluster project. For a six-time Academy Award nominee, Jim Sheridan resorted to positively amateurish directorial techniques in the making of "Get Rich." Camerawork vacillated between jumpy documentary-style filming and polished, smooth steady-cam, leaving the audience in the no man's land of apathy between feeling personally involved in the film and being unabashedly entertained by the action playing out onscreen.
As for the writing, Terence Winter's script was more of a hit-or-miss enigma than a total calamity. Hits were dead-on, but the misses were devastating. The major flaw in "Get Rich's" storytelling was its inability to provide motivation for much of the characters' actions. For instance, upon re-encountering his childhood sweetheart Charlene years later, Jackson's character Marcus is surprised to find that, while he has been perfecting his career as a crack hustler, Charlene has pulled herself out of the ghetto and into respectable society.
But despite absolutely zero chemistry between the two former flames, Charlene quickly throws away all that she's gained for Marcus, discarding new friends, family and a middle-class life without any apparent emotional conflict.
Then again, given what we learn of Marcus' skills in the bedroom from an awkwardly-timed sex scene later on, maybe she made the right decision. Let's just say that if the whole rapping thing falls through for 50 Cent and he's still really serious about making it in the film industry, he might want to give soft-core porn a try.
The supporting cast of "Get Rich" is equally diverse in terms of ability and importance to the story. Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, a veteran of the villain role, gives an inspired performance as Majestic, the ruthless leader of Marcus' dealing organization, and his careful shading of what could have been a token character provides a welcome foil to Marcus' impassivity.
Then there's Terrence Howard. Proving yet again that he can do no wrong, even his introduction in the form of a Greco-Roman-style nude prison shower riot doesn't detract from Howard's credibility. As Marcus's erratic and extremist fellow inmate, Howard's Bama drives Marcus's rise to the top of the hip hop game in much the same way that Howard's real-life credentials buoy "Get Rich."
That said, what good is a musician's biopic without a killer soundtrack to back it up? The "Get Rich" soundtrack is a pale imitator of the real 50 Cent album that shares its name. Completely bereft of catchy hooks or heart-pounding beats, this collaboration by 50 Cent's posse G-Unit does little as a musical score to explain or advance the plot onscreen; it merely floats along ineffectually as general atmospheric background noise.
Needless to say, 50 Cent should not expect to follow in mentor Eminem's footsteps as the second Shady/Aftermath alum to garner a little gold statue for Best Original Song.
Judging by the fact that the soundtrack reflects the general mediocrity of "Get Rich" as a whole, his fellow rapper's 2003 win will probably be the closest to the Oscars 50 Cent will ever get.
