8 MILE

Rap Fans Will Enjoy 8 Mile…All Others Beware

Ever since Al Jolson “Mammied” it up in the groundbreaking talkie called The Jazz Singer, every style of music has had its moment on the silver screen. The star of most of these films is, of course, the music, with the plot and acting mere afterthoughts.

One of the more popular themes of these films is the rags to riches tale of the poor struggling musician who must overcome a number of adversities on his or her way to the spotlight. The latest of these movies to borrow the basic premise of A Star is Born is 8 Mile, the rap movie which some critics are hailing the next Purple Rain. That might be true, considering that Purple Rain is a pretty tired film that manages to capture the mid-80s in all its rooster-haired narcissism.

Like Purple Rain, 8 Mile is a movie for fans of a particular style of music…but not really for anyone else. 8 Mile’s star, Motorcity motor-mouth rapper Eminem, does a serviceable job playing himself in his screen debut, and his supporting cast is fine as the ever-frowning-gritty-realism players.

For those people unfamiliar with Detroit, 8 Mile refers to the east-west thoroughfare 8 Mile Road that serves as the northern border of the Detroit city limits. On one side of the street you have the beginning of the suburbs and on the other you have the gateway to one of the meanest cities in America. 8 Mile Road also serves as a racial boundary in America’s most segregated community. Most of the blue-collar whites have moved north of the avenue to put their kids in suburban schools while most of the neighborhoods in Detroit proper are African American with new pockets of Latino and Middle Eastern communities.

8 Mile does a good job of portraying the inherent segregation of Detroit and of its working class character. These people may no longer live together but their parents still work together in the giant impersonal automotive industry. Will their kids reunite through the power of rap music? 8 Mile seems to think that that’s possible.

At the end of the day, many viewers will have the same problem with the film as some music lovers have with rap in general. There’s no seduction. Music needs a melody to seduce the audience into listening to the words. Without melody it becomes somebody shouting at you and for a lot of older music lovers that is about as charming as listening to a deranged street preacher yelling about your future in hell.

There’s no seduction in this movie either. We’re automatically supposed to care about Eminem even though his only goal in life seems to be getting on stage and hurling insults at other people. I’m sorry, poetry it ain’t. He and all of his contemporaries swagger around with a bad-ass demeanor…and nothing at all to back it up.

If you are a fan of rap and its ludicrous “tough-guy” culture, 8 Mile is for you. Otherwise, you may just want to rent Purple Rain again.

8 Mile is rated R and is playing at the Chalet Triple Theatre in Boone.