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Written by Midnight Butterfly
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Sunday, 08 January 2012 01:03 |
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Page 1 of 2 
8 Mile is a deceptive movie. It’s formula but it’s not formulaic, familiar without being tired, stirring without being manipulative. Several times it flirts with cliché but manages to side step it every time. In the end 8 Mile succeeds by doing what has come to seem an impossibility to expect out of a Hollywood movie—it keeps it real.
| Curtis Hanson, who brought us the exquisitely polished L.A. Confidential proves to have still more colors in his palette and to be just adroit at using them. Whereas that movie was about the grime under the glamour of 1940’s Hollywood, in 8 Mile –set in contemporary Detroit-- the grime is the glamour. White trash trailer-parks rub worn elbow patches with the Black ghetto and poetry is about survival not academic pretensions towards “art”. This is life in blue-collar middle America. It’s painted in dark blues and greys, and the din of the factory is only drowned out briefly by a desperate cry of sexual release or the angry report of gunfire. Hanson and cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto bring this reality home without flourishes or aggrandizement and the beauty they find here is its own. |
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The audience sees this world through the tortured eyes of Jimmy Smith, portrayed by mega-star rapper, Eminem. It is an interesting aspect of this film that in a story about a performance wordsmith its most eloquent moments happen quietly in the eyes of its protagonist. They’re never still, and sometimes they seem to swallow the screen. The anguish and anger, the hopelessness, the desire, it’s all there. The one thing Smith’s eyes never are, is dead, they’re always startlingly alive and striving-- never more so than in the final onstage confrontations when through them you can see Smith’s mind furiously working, in a type of ecstasy, fully in its element. Unlike a lot of heroes whose stories take place in depressed economic situations Smith does not derive his sense of virility from violence but from mental agility.
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Smith is not a criminal; he knows the value of hard work and holds down a job at the local automobile plant. Likewise Jimmy’s friends, a motley crew at best, are fundamentally honest, hard-working types going nowhere fast. All of them are big fans of Jimmy’s, a.k.a. B-Rabbit, and recognize his ability as something extraordinary. The cast here, led by the under-rated and under utilized Mekhi Phifer is excellent. Some of the movie’s best and most honest moments are just among the crew, hanging out, giving each other shit, supporting each other against rival gangs, driving each other to work when one’s car goes down. It’s a surprisingly tender and unforced dynamic that, along with Eminem’s riveting performance in the center, gives the movie some much needed depth. |
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Last Updated on Sunday, 08 January 2012 01:55 |
