Get Rich or Die Tryin’ (2005)

(On TV, June 2022) Perhaps now best seen as a time capsule of a specific time and attitude, Get Rich or Die Tryin’ is most notable for being a dramatization of rapper Curtis “50 cents” Jackson’s early life as a small-time criminal turning to music for salvation. Considering that Jackson plays himself, you can count on two things: He’s not that good of an actor, and the film isn’t going to be particularly hard on the actions of his character. Or is it? Because, from a certain perspective, Get Rich or Die Tryin’ isn’t all that critical of its protagonist’s decidedly non-intellectual pursuits, or his pursuit of crime until consequences come due, such as being gunned down – you’d think that anyone would get to that conclusion well before being shot. I’m not going to keep going in that direction: there have been plenty of thoughtful pieces about the thug-rapper pivot and I’m not adding much to it. But the pall hangs over the film and is compounded by ideas we’ve seen in other, much better films. It’s a story built from entirely fictional premises rather than being “inspired by real events” and being limited by them. Get Rich or Die Tryin’ is watchable on a very basic level, but it doesn’t inspire much devotion – and there’s a whiff of unpleasantness hanging over it all.