What's the best way to kick off a documentary about one of the world's hottest rappers? With some canned scratches and beats accompanying a few red carpet clips of other artists praising your subject. What's the next best thing they can do? Bring in a proper British accented woman to narrate the proceedings. Then proceed with talking head style interviews with family(?) members and friends(?) to talk about the past of the subject.
The subject in this case is Eminem. Eminem is an intriguing public persona, his seemingly meteoric rise to fame and fortune, his tumultuous relationship with now ex-wife Kim, not to mention that with his mother. There is also the prosperous relationship with Dr. Dre, and his popularity across the board. If anything, his background is a wealth of interesting tales and adventures. So, this begs the question, why is this so dreadfully dull? I really cannot see a fan of Eminem's sitting down and watching this all the way through.
The majority of the sixty minute runtime is taken up by uninteresting people that are supposedly from Eminem's past. The people who ran rap battles, people who listened to his early tracks, family members who helped raise him, they all parade across the screen never making much of an impression. A few of them tried to be clever, but it was forced and unfunny. Some of the, ahem, anecdotes that they share are so pointless and don't offer any genuine insight into his start, rather they seem to just want to be on camera.
Also mixed in here and there were some old clips of interviews. You don't here the questions, just him talking about whatever, but at least we get a little bit of him. It was better than listening to these nobodies. We may not get the context, but it was refreshing to see him once in awhile.
It just boggles my mind how dull this is. The canned music, the interview subjects, the British narration, nothing here meshed. On top of that, this appears to be another renaming of an older release (See also: Metallica: Out of the Loop, Green Day: Suburbia Bomb, U2: The Complete History), the menu and the documentary display a title of Eminem: Behind the Mask. This is unauthorized, which explains the use of canned music as the real thing wasn't licensed, and also the lack of any original interviews with Eminem.
Do, if you are looking for anything with the Eminem name on it, you'll want this. But, if you are a little more discriminating, you will want to pass this up. It does not offer any insight into the artist, the information is just not terribly interesting. Although, I did like the clip early on of Courtney Love, with a silent Michael Stipe, where she calls Marshall "The first truly post modern artist where if you take away his context and producer, he's a fool, but when you put him with his producer and his corporate sponsorship, he's a genius." Read that again, it sounds as if she is giving him a little dig, a backhanded compliment, if you will. Possibly the only interesting moment, and it comes at less than one minute into the program.
Bottomline. Eminem has had quite a run over the past 7 or 8 years and his life is ripe for the picking if one set out to make an interesting document of his life. This just seems like a slapped together attempt to make some money off of his name. You'd do best to pass this up.
Not Recommended.
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