An enigma wrapped in a mystery is an apt description of the cultural force that was Tupac Amaru Shakur. Tupac: Resurrection bears witness to the slain rapper's contradictory existence, splicing together pictures, videos, interviews, concerts and news footage—with Tupac narrating—to offer the most invasive look yet into the conflicted soul of the hip-hop generation's would-be Malcolm X.
The opening recasts September 7, 1996, when Tupac was gunned down in Las Vegas. Then the screen fades to black. Offered from there is a chronology of Tupac's life: troubled childhood bouncing around ghettoes; influences of hoods and hustlers; becoming a socially aware young man; diving into rap; then becoming a phenomenon.
For the depth revealed about Tupac, this could've easily have been dubbed Tupac: Humanized.
Concert footage shows Tupac at his most innocent. His time with feel-good rap group Digital Underground at his most content. At his most virulent and violent? Well, there's that, too, from gun talk on wax and actual gunplay to accusations that rapper Biggie Smalls and rap mogul P. Diddy orchestrated his assault in New York. A jailhouse interview, during his stint on a sexual abuse charge, offers a smart Tupac, who had to check his attitude because he often interacted with killers. Tupac at his most honest: admitting he was scared to take the mantle as leader of the black underclass.
The movie's success lies in laying bare Tupac's contradictions. He was potshotted by vice presidents and loathed by feminists, yet knighted in Ghetto U.S.A. and deified by groupies. He was gentle one moment, crazy the next. Yet, many of his songs are filled with uplifting messages of black self-help, pleas to rid communities of violence, drugs and poverty.
In the end, you learn everything you need to know about Tupac, in his own words. But you have to wonder, since he had prophesied his own violent demise, why he chose that path anyway.