The movie evolves around the rapper "B-Rabbit"(Eminem), and his struggle to achieve fame despite his poor living and work conditions. B-Rabbit, or Jimmy Smith, lives in a trailer with his mother(Kim Basinger) and her mentally damaged boyfriend Greg(Michael Shannon). Greg is an unemployed heavy drinker, and he is abusive towards both Jimmy and his mother, much to Jimmy's dismay. Jimmy is depressed because of his poor current situation, and because his life hasn't evolved in any way since high school. His sole target throughout the movie is to become a successful rapper and escape Detroit, the city he has lived in through his entire life. Jimmy often finds comfort in his friends; "Future"(Mekhi Phifer), "Cheddar Bob"(Evan Jones) and "DJ IZ"(De'Angelo Wilson). He also has a friendship with the self-claimed manager "Wink"(Eugene Byrd), despite his association with the rival organization "Leaders of the Free World".
The film starts with Rabbit patricipating in an urban rap battle. After spending a long time preparing, he walks up to stage to face his opponent, but he unfortunately chokes, meaning that he gets too nervous to say a single world. Later, Rabbit has to move back to his mother, Stephanie, and his sister, Lily, after having broken up with his old girlfriend and leaving his car for her. He also discovers that Stephanie's absuive boyfriend Greg has moved in. Rabbit goes to his low-paid work at a factory, where he meets a girl named Alex, whom he immediately takes a liking to.
Throughout the movie, Rabbit's personality grows into a more mature and responsible manner, and he becomes more confident of himself. He developes a relationship with Alex, he stands up for both women and homosexuals, and he delivers solid performances at his job, which earns him some deeply needed extra shifts. After a while, his relationships with both Future, Wink and Alex is damaged after a fight with Future, and after he witnesses Alex cheating on him with Wink. Despite this, he manages to repair his relationship with both Alex and Future. Wink, however, remains hostile after Rabbit's violent retaliation. He gets his payback when he brings his Free World crew to Rabbit's trailer to beat him up.
Despite several protests, Future signs Rabbit up for a new rap battle, and Rabbit, who was initially very reluctant, shows up at last. This serves as the climax of the movie. Alex also shows up to support Rabbit. The crowd initially mocks Rabbit following his previous attempt when he choked, but Rabbit wins both of the first two rounds, and proves his capabilities to the crowd. In the final round, he is set to face Papa Doc, the leader of Free World. Knowing that Papa Doc knows all of Rabbit's weaknesses, he surprises the crowd by opening up with revealing all the things that Papa Doc could've used against him, thus rendering Doc speechless. After Rabbit's overwhelming rhymes, Papa Doc chokes, and Rabbit finally wins the finals.
The theme of the movie is the American Dream. Rabbit is stuck in a poor community with a low-paid job and with lots of everyday problems. He wants to become a succesfull rapper and reach the top, but he struggles with challenges which he finds hard to overcome. He often points out to his friends that they could reach much farther than where they are now, but he feels overlooked by them, and gets the impression that he wants it more than his friends.
I think the movie was very good, and I think it formulates a good story in an impressive way. The acting is also very splendid, especially considering that the lead role is played by Eminem, who has no form of acting education in beforehand. The reason why he did such an excellent acting performance, might be because of his similarities to B-Rabbit. Both of them were raised by a single mother, and both of them grew up in Detroit. They were also both very integrated in the African-American rap community, and both of them were eager participants of freestyle rap battles.I'd recommend this movie to everyone who is interested in a good story that sets things in perspective. One does not have to be fan of hip-hop or rap to enjoy this movie, but it will of course be a bonus if you're a fan of Eminem and his music. The movie has a quite decent rating of 6.8 on IMDB, but one would have to judge it using your own opinion,
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_Mile_(film)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eminem
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0298203/
Ingen kommentarer:
Legg inn en kommentar