8 Mile Review
by Jon Popick (jpopick AT sick-boy DOT com)November 3rd, 2002
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The third "8" movie to be released in the last four months (a fourth - Adam Sandler's 8 Crazy Nights - bows at the end of November), 8 Mile is an ambitious hodgepodge of Purple Rain, Cool As Ice, Slam, and Breakin' 2: Electric Bugaloo. While it's certainly no Oscar contender, the film is admirable for merely not sucking. I would imagine most of the exaggerated praise Mile has received is in direct correlation to the crappy pictures most rap-rock-pop stars have made in vain attempts to become movie stars (see Crossroads and How High for more details). So it's good because it isn't awful, which isn't very good at all.
The same thing can be said for the film's star, Eminem. His performance, which isn't exactly good or awful, shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone. He's been acting like a bad ass for years, so why would it suddenly become difficult to portray tough? Also, Em's role is at least mostly autobiographical. Expressing shock about his acting skills would be the equivalent of astonishment over Emeril packing you a nice lunch.
In the 1995-set Mile, which is named after a road that divided black Detroit and its white suburbs, Em plays Jimmy Smith, Jr., who more frequently goes by Rabbit. As the film opens, Rabbit has just broken up with his ugly-ass girlfriend (Taryn Manning, Crossroads), leaving the skank with his car, which appears to be his only possession of value. With a garbage bag full of clothes slung over his shoulder, Rabbit heads back to his ancestral birthplace - a dingy trailer which is also home to his slutty, unemployed mom (Kim Basinger, I Dreamed of Africa), her much-younger, unemployed boyfriend (Michael Shannon) and Rabbit's little sister (Chloe Greenfield).
As if having to move back in with your mom isn't bad enough, Rabbit also, in the film's first scene, suffers the ultimate embarrassment of any young rap-star wannabe: He chokes in a "battle" against another aspiring rapper. So to recap, his name is Rabbit, his mom is a tramp, he's got no wheels and everyone mocks his inability to properly participate in battles. Things are not going well for the guy. On top of that, Rabbit has a dead-end factory job (a la another certain dreamer from Dancer in the Dark), yet for some reason most of the people around him seem to believe he's worth copious amounts of coddling, despite not showing any capacity to rhyme worth a damn until the final reel (at least to the viewer, anyway).
Is there supposed to be a message here? If there is, I sure didn't get it. I think the more interesting story comes after the closing credits roll. What happens to Rabbit? Does he "make it"? Does he abandon his friends for stardom? What happened to his mom and sister after the Bingo money ran out? I'm all for stories that don't neatly tie up every loose end, but Mile barely even creates any. It's predictable and formulaic to an extreme. The film also moves very slowly toward its inevitable conclusion (director Curtis Hanson is becoming a less-talented Michael Mann, another visual director who badly needs to shave at least 20 minutes from every film he's ever made). But the worst part is the fact that Mile plays like somebody's attempt to makeover Em's image. Will his fans be upset that his screen alter-ego isn't an incredibly violent man? Here, he's a rapscallion who shoots paintballs at cop cars, but he's also sensitive enough to leave his ex his car, to protect his younger sister, and to buddy up to a gay guy at work. Where's the misogyny? Where's the homophobia? Where's the Eminem we've all grown to love-slash-hate?
Hanson (Wonder Boys), who hasn't written since winning an Oscar for adapting L.A. Confidential, makes the most of Scott Silver's (writer-director of The Mod Squad) anemic script. I really hope somebody gives Hanson a strong story to direct one of these days, because it's getting downright painful to watch him waste his talent on bad scripts. Cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto (Frida, Amores Perros) gives Mile a fantastic gritty look, and ER's Mekhi Phifer is solid as Rabbit's best friend (though Eminem is a much better actor than Phifer is a rapper). Brittany Murphy (Don't Say a Word) is largely wasted in her role as Rabbit's love interest, whose name is Alex, but should be Alice (Alice and Rabbit...get it?).
1:47 - R for strong language, sexuality, some violence and drug use
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