All Eyez On Me

Born to a leader in the Black Panthers, destiny marks out Tupac Shakur from an early age. Relocated to the west coast as an adolescent, the young Tupac is exposed to the harsh realities of a life in a poor neighbourhood. As he gets signed up by the hip-hop group Digital Underground, it’s these realities that will later infuse his music and shape his destiny…

Tupac Shakur’s ground-breaking take on rap, music production, acting and social conscience was always going to demand that a biopic be made about his life and now it is here. After several directorial changes, music director Benny Boom has cast Demetrius Shipp Jr in the role of Tupac. In appearance and mannerisms, Demetrius has got Tupac down, conveying the conflicted yet erudite young rapper with the railed-upon super star yet to come. Near eclipsing his performance is Danai Gurira as Tupac’s mother. As in life, Tupac’s mother drills into her young man his identity as a black man, which is the very spinal chord of his this movie and she devours every line she gets.

‘All Eyez On Me’ feels like there is so much more to tell…

Like ‘Straight Out of Compton’ which charts a parallel course with the later formation of Death Row Records, ‘All Eyez On Me’ feels like there is so much more to tell. Details that were lingered on in the former movie are skipped over here. Like Tupac’s confusion of the teller becoming the tale, ‘All Eyez On Me’ hints at a depth that remains to be explored. Whilst you see the cause and effect of Tupac’s actions here, this movie never really takes you any close as to the why.

As with the well-publicised way Tupac’s story ends, ‘All Eyez On Me’ shies away from addressing its mystery and instead abruptly ends, leaving questions swirling around a cultural lightning rod who never shied away from depicting the afro American experience as it was.

As Tupac himself put it, he wanted to be the catalyst for change and as director John Singleton has hinted, there is a deeper, more profound movie yet to be made about this man’s life. In the meantime ‘All Eyez On Me’ will suffice as a spirited take on the man’s life while we wait for another biopic that address both Tupac’s legacy and the hostile envies of the east and west coast rap scene.