8 Mile: Blu-ray Disc Review (2009)

The title of Curtis Hanson's "8 Mile," now out on Blu-ray disc, 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. This 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 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 was billed as the semi-autobiography of its once-controversial star, Eminem, the gifted yet polarizing rapper who made a fortune pushing the world’s buttons.

Here, he's a poor, scrappy twentysomething nicknamed Bunny Rabbit who aspires to get away from his boozy mother (Kim Basinger) and become a rap star. As unlikely as that seems, and as angry as Bunny Rabbit is at his situation, the movie oddly fails to mine the intensity of Eminem’s best songs. As an actor, Eminem has presence to spare, but the film doesn’t allow him to fully capture the rage that defines so much of his early work.

It makes him almost approachable, which proves especially disappointing, sort of as if Madonna had released her “Sex” book without the sex.

Rated R.

Grade: C

Features:
The Making Of 8 Mile
Exclusive Rap Battles Uncensored
"Superman" Music Video Uncensored
My Scenes