NEWS: The Notorious B.I.G. Move Script Review

NY Magazine's Vulture Blog had the opportunity to read the script to the upcoming Notorious B.I.G. biopic and describes it as follows: Similar recent music bios have been wise to limit their scope to specific parts of their subjects' histories. The 113-page screenplay for Notorious (by journalist Cheo Hodari Coker) makes the unfortunate decision to pack an entire (albeit short) life into a two-hour movie. 8 Mile's focus on Eminem's early, pre-fame career gave the film a natural story arc and taught us things we didn't already know. Notorious — on paper, at least — plays like a loose-knit highlight reel; it's basically the screenplay adaptation of Biggie's Wikipedia entry.

It opens with his murder and funeral, then doubles back to his Brooklyn childhood. We get a few scenes of Biggie at home, in the classroom, and on the corner dealing crack; there are some rap posters in his bedroom, and we see him fill a rhyme book during a nine-month prison sentence, but there's no real explanation given for how he went from enthusiastic fan to one of hip-hop's all-time most revered emcees. Nevertheless, by page 30, he's signed to Puffy's label, and from there it's a mad, tensionless dash to the end of his biography, with all emerging conflicts — his mom's breast cancer, baby-mama drama, various love triangles (Biggie, Faith Evans, Lil' Kim; Biggie, Evans, Tupac) — resolved within a scene or two. Read the full description here.