Notorious

Notorious is a by the numbers biopic about Biggie Smalls. As directed by George Tillman Jr. Notorious shows a very unglamorous depiction of an artist and his rise to the top of the recording game. Tillman also helmed Men of Honor and Soul Food. I had a friend who worked on Soul Food and he told me it was some of the best catered food he's ever had on a movie set.
Specifically Notorious charts the friendship between Biggie and Tupac and attempts to put some order to the confusion about their respective murders. It's especially touching that Biggie's son Christopher Jordan Wallace plays the title character as a young boy in the movie's opening scene. The movie chronicles Smalls starting out as a drug dealer while still in school and how he eventually hooks up with Puff Daddy after a stint in prison. Notorious is wall to wall sex and drugs although the emphasis centers on how Smalls uses his new found largesse to insulate himself from the world.
The most compelling reason to see Notorious is for the performances of several actors playing famous singers. From Angela Basset as Biggie's mother with a huge heart to Jamal Woolard in his career defining debut role as Notorious B.I.G. the acting is solid and unforced even in emotionally turbulent moments. Particularly engaging are Naturi Naughton as Lil Kim, Antonique Smith as Faith Evans, Derek Luke as Puffy Combs and Anthony Mackie just knocking it out of the park as Tupac Shakur. Tupac's getting mugged and shot in the lobby of Biggie's East Coast recording studio plants the seeds of suspicion in what was until then a great friendship.
Even at the gutter level Tillman throws in hints of redemption. In the manner of a studio movie from the 30s we see that the worst character, a crack addict that teenage Biggie has no qualms selling rock to, has become the role model for motherhood. It's a brief shot near the end of the movie but it says a lot about what the filmmakers are trying to achieve.