8 Mile: Movie & DVD Review

(Originally published Nov. 6, 2002)

The title of Curtis Hanson's "8 Mile" comes from the stretch of highway that divides the racially mixed inner-city of Detroit from its predominantly white, middle-class suburbs. On a map, it’s an area about the size of a postage stamp, but economically, it might as well be a continent away.

On the surface, "8 Mile" seems to promise a story that will transcend that gap, but it doesn’t, at least not completely.

The film, from a script by Scott Silver, is a rap movie designed to appeal to a specific demographic--the white, suburban audience on the privileged side of the tracks. As such, it’s generic and unthreatening without being boring, a slick, claustrophobic drama that pretends to be edgy but which actually isn’t. It homogenizes the rap scene and offers zero insight into hip-hop culture.

That it goes out of its way to push as few buttons as possible is the film's biggest surprise and its greatest shortcoming, especially since it’s being billed as the semi-autobiography of its controversial star, Eminem, the gifted yet polarizing rapper who has made a fortune by pushing the world’s buttons.

What the film lacks are just those qualities you'd expect it would have in spades--an undercurrent of urgency, spontaneity and soul. The film is hardly a total bust—I enjoyed parts of it--but unlike Prince’s “Purple Rain,” it's rarely as smart or as provocative as the often brilliant, spellbinding lyrics for which its star is known.

Set in 1995, the film stars Eminem as Jimmy Smith Jr., a scrappy rapper-wannabe living in a cramped trailer with his washed-up mother (Kim Basinger), his angelic kid sister (Chloe Greenfield) and his mother’s abusive boyfriend (Michael Shannon), none of whom break stereotype.

Nicknamed Bunny Rabbit by his family and friends--a name that suggests a warm-and-fuzzy sensibility that's about as far removed from Eminem's real-life persona as you can get—the film’s other joke, at least for Rabbit’s foes, is that he aspires to be a rap star.

Considering he’s white, that’ll be almost impossible to pull off in this town, but with the help of his best friend, Future (Mekhi Phifer), who emcees a weekly rap battle, and Jimmy’s other friends and his new girlfriend, Alex (Brittany Murphy), he nevertheless has the support he needs even if he doesn’t have the self-confidence to immediately succeed.

Indeed, after freezing on stage in the film’s disastrous opening battle, Rabbit recedes into an emotional hole, from which he only finds the courage to leave at the end of the movie, when Hanson at last allows him to take the stage again in a rap showdown.

Like so much of this unusually timid movie, the rap contest that closes the film is engaging but not electrifying. It lacks the intensity of Eminem’s best songs, such as “Lose Yourself” and “Cleaning Out My Closet.” As an actor, he has presence, but the film doesn’t allow him to fully capture the rage that defines so much of his work. That proves especially disappointing, sort of like if Madonna had released her “Sex” book without the sex.

Grade: C