Notorious , with a superb cast (Angela Basset, Derek Luke, Jamal Woolard, and Anthony Mack), is a profound, suspenseful, and entertaining true story of a mega star, Biggie Smalls, chronicling the life and death of Christopher Wallace. With talent and determination, Christopher seemed destined for fame and fortune. However, at an early he was led down the dark path of dealing drugs on the streets of Brooklyn, which eventually lead to his arrest and finally resulted in prison time.
Christopher was raised by a single mother (a faith-filled one at that), who truly loved and cared for her son. It was tough love from his mother that changed Christopher’s destiny, and it was in jail that he began to compose his rhymes - “Frustrations turned into rhymes and those rhymes told my story.”
Ultimately he changed his game from hustling on the streets to “rapping” on stage. With Puff Daddy by his side, he made it big: Christopher Wallace became Biggie Smalls.
The film, just like Biggie Smalls, is colorful and at times crude. It was exciting to watch his rise to fame and interesting to see the drama that framed his personal life, but it was shocking to observe the events that surrounded his tragic death at the young age of 24, and the related death of Tupak Shakur (something I only heard about on the news back in 1997), which just proves that gang violence is a deadly game where nobody wins!
I was very touched by the final scene, a heart-wrenching sight when Christopher’s mother (Angela Basset) brought her son’s dead body back home from Los Angeles. The film shares her thoughts and feelings during his funeral, where thousands of fans were lined up on the streets of Brooklyn to show their grief and love for this young artist - her boy, Christopher, who became a man.
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