Before seeing this film I thought, “Why?” Look up Tupac on IMDB and about five different documentary titles come up and that’s not including the VH1 “Behind the Music” episode or any specials MTV have run on the late rapper. So once again…why? I realize the guy had talent, but so did GG Allin and there’s only one documentary on him.
Well, to separate “Tupac: Resurrection” from the rest of the pack, this is supposedly the first “official” documentary on Tupac, Mama Shakur approved. So knowing this, you can expect more information in this film than any of the others, along with the same old stories we’ve heard over and over again for the past several years.
“Resurrection” gives you the whole story from the day of Tupac’s birth to his untimely death in Las Vegas. It’s a full two hours of Tupac, filled with interviews, news footage, old photographs, all the good stuff a proper interview needs and there’s even clever interview footage edited together to serve as narration for the entire thing. I haven’t seen the other docs, but I imagine that this one blows the others away. Filmmaker Lauren Lazin has created a loving tribute to this late star as if he was her own son. Fans will approve.
As a non-fan, I thoroughly enjoyed the film and didn’t even feel the two-hour running time. I have never really had anything against Tupac; I just never got into his music. And quite honestly, the only thing I knew about the guy was from various news reports about his arrests and displays of assholism. But after seeing this film, I gotta admit I see the guy in a different light. He’s very articulate and makes several great points explaining his behavior as well as why gangsta rap is so brutal and in your face. There are still several points in this film where you’ll see the rapper as a jerk, but hey, we’re all jerks at some point. Sometimes we’re jerks for a day because we got a parking ticket or maybe you caught the wife cheating on you with the gardener. Tupac had the cops f*****g with him on a constant basis, many times for nothing at all, and on top of that, he was granted a giant pedestal to voice his anger. If this were you, you’d probably come off as a jerk sometimes, too.
Fortunately, the whole Biggie and Tupac war is kept to a fair minimum because there was a documentary released just recently on just that whole segment of his life. “Resurrection” takes a look at the man’s entire life and grants us an eye-opening look inside his brain. And now that the supposed be-all-end-all documentary has been made, let’s let the guy get some fuckin’ rest, okay?
