Notorious Reviews
Film Threat
Absent the actual music, Notorious would be a lot worse.
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| Original Score: 1.5/5
Washington Times
Though it never quite devolves into pure hagiography, the film's central tale of crack dealer made good is sometimes a little too hokey for its own good.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
BET.com
Notorious is a tribute the rapper's contribution to pop culture.
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| Original Score: B-
Cinema Signals
You've heard of laundering money? Well, this film biography of rapper Notorious B.I.G. has all the earmarks of--not monetary but morality cleansing.
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| Original Score: 1.5/5
NewsBlaze
While it's now less a case of race than class in black film, Notorious seems to still be taking tabloid cues more from alien ghetto underclass drama and what's come before, rather than bringing new and improved insight to the table beyond the cool music.
Critic's Notebook
[An] intermittently entertaining but thoroughly conventional Biggie biopic.
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| Original Score: 2.5/4
MovieTime, ABC Radio National
What might have been an African-American gangland epic with a killer soundtrack treads safely as a run-of-the-mill biopic.
FILMINK (Australia)
Notorious is a pretty standard biopic, and is probably largely compromised. If you've never seen Nick Broomfield's excellent 2002 doco Biggie And Tupac, you'd be better served hunting that down instead.
Daily Telegraph (Australia)
While the script provides ample illustrations of Wallace's tough life, there is not enough focus on what set the recording star apart from his peers or why he became so incredibly popular so quickly.
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| Original Score: 2.5/5
Urban Cinefile
There is little here to attract anyone but the core fan-base.
Miss FlickChick
A big, bad bundle of biopic cliches, a glitzy whitewash filled with wince-inducing dialogue and propelled by a smug, from-beyond-the-grave voiceover.
Observer [UK]
Like Violet Kray producing a film about her twin sons. The movie doesn't ignore its subject's shortcomings, but it sentimentalises them and becomes increasingly incoherent as it proceeds.
Little White Lies
The inclusion of real-life footage and re-enacted YouTube clips is an interesting idea, but with each awkward stab at a new shooting style, Tillman Jr moves closer towards disgracing his subject with yet another hack job.
Sunday Mirror [UK]
A swaggering delve into the life of the biggest of all rappers.
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| Original Score: 4/5
Daily Express
It isn't the most subtle movie, with characters constantly spelling out the big message - in order to change the world, you first have to change yourself.
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| Original Score: 3/5
thelondonpaper
A hagiographical whitewash.
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| Original Score: 2/5
Guardian [UK]
Now in blows the myth of the myth: a brashly entertaining biopic.
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| Original Score: 3/5
Daily Telegraph
This team have smoothed over the details of Biggie's rags-to-riches ascent, they haven't succeeded in making it terribly interesting.
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| Original Score: 2/5
Digital Spy
This film by George Tillman Jr is less about the street politics and more about the slushy soap opera going on at home.
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| Original Score: 2/5
Daily Mail [UK]
This is Hollywood hagiography at its most patronising and preposterous - a product, as well as a celebration, of a diseased, materialistic culture.
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| Original Score: 0/5
