Cashing Out

50 Cent dies trying in his film debut

Josh Bell

Get Rich or Die Tryin' is a notable film for exactly two reasons: It's the screen debut of rapper 50 Cent, who plays a fictionalized version of himself, and it pairs him with Irish director Jim Sheridan, best known for prestigious dramas such as My Left Foot and In the Name of the Father. Take away the rapper and the famous director, and all you've got left is your standard, tired gangster (or gangsta) movie.


In that case, Sheridan and 50 (who's credited as Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson) need to bring a great deal to the project to elevate it above the mundane. Although Sheridan occasionally does just that, Jackson's flat, unimpressive screen presence and muddled line delivery does little to convey the kind of superstar charisma that has vaulted him to the top of the pop-music charts. It's true that rappers often make great actors, and Jackson has the advantage of essentially playing himself, but he is consistently unable to rise to the challenge.


Unlike the 2002 Eminem vehicle, 8 Mile, to which it will be endlessly compared, Get Rich is not primarily a film about one man's musical aspirations. Jackson's Marcus does dream of becoming a rapper, and begins to achieve that dream by the time the movie ends, but his ambition is treated almost as an afterthought and takes a backseat to the typical gangster rise-and-fall story. Marcus grows up poor in the Bronx, where his mother is a drug dealer and his father is a mystery. Thanks to her criminal activities, Marcus' mother is murdered while her son is still a child, and he's raised by his grandparents alongside a gaggle of aunts, uncles and cousins.


Marcus grows up to follow in his mom's footsteps, even working for Majestic (a menacing Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje), the same hustler who may or may not have killed his mother. He gets himself the requisite love interest, a thoughtful childhood friend named Charlene (Joy Bryant), and eventually ends up doing a stint in jail, where he meets smooth-talking Bama (Terrence Howard), who encourages him to give up drug dealing and pursue his maddeningly vague dreams of becoming a rapper.


What follows is as predictable as any second-rate, made-for-cable 'hood-life flick, full of cliché characters and hokey dialogue. Screenwriter Terence Winter, despite time spent on the writing staff of The Sopranos, doesn't do much to deviate from familiar crime-movie elements. That leaves it to Jackson to sell Marcus as a character we can care about, especially as he gets shot point-blank nine times (as Jackson did in real life) and lies near death on an operating table. The movie is framed by this event, but it's no more emotionally affecting than any of the other bits of senseless violence that dot Marcus' life.


Even when their performances are unfocused, the best rappers-turned-actors, such as Ice Cube, Will Smith and Ludacris, bring magnetic personalities and unbridled exuberance to the screen. Jackson spends most of the movie scowling and looking vaguely uncomfortable, like someone at a party with a video camera unexpectedly turned on him. Sheridan, who told the story of Irish immigrants in New York in his last film, In America, lends a humanizing touch to the often-generic proceedings, and occasionally catches a transcendent image amid the chaos of thug life.


What he doesn't do is find any sort of resonance beyond the worn-out beats of the gangsta story. While 8 Mile gave you a real sense of the artistic drive and creative energy that pushed Eminem's character into the rap world, Get Rich treats Marcus' rapping as nothing greater than a career option more palatable than drug dealing. There's little focus on what makes Marcus talented or unique as an artist, and nothing as exhilarating as 8 Mile's rap battles or the studio scenes from this summer's superior Hustle & Flow.


Without any unique hooks to elevate it above the pack, Get Rich comes off as a poorly conceived vanity project for Jackson, and a misguided bid for street cred by Sheridan. The intentions may have been better than that, but the result falls disappointingly flat.

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