8 Mile
Matt Hatson reviews the DVD release of Eminem's debut film 8 mile and finds a well acted relevant film whose themes model life in inner cities world-wide.
The people of Detroit know 8 Mile as the city limit, a border, a boundary. It is also a psychological dividing line that separates Jimmy Smith Jr. (Eminem) from where and who he wants to be... Stuck in a dead-end job, living with his mother in a down and out trailer park, Jimmy is forced to consider the life he has mapped out for him and decide whether he has it in him to drive himself to success.
Everyone dreams of success, wealth and all of the trappings that come with fame. Few achieve it. For most success comes at a price – determination, a thick skin and an understanding of what it takes to get to where you want to be. For the inhabitants of Detroit in 8 mile, most of them will dream all their lives, hoping that some day a big break will come and they will be rescued from obscurity and have fame thrust upon them. In reality they associate fame with money, the minimum requirement for getting them out of dull jobs and the same old Saturday nights. 8 Mile charts dark days in the life of Jimmy B. Rabbit as he comes to terms with the basic facts that his life sucks and the only person who is going to get him out of that situation is him. This message is brilliantly reflected in the fortunes of his mother who continues to look for the pot of gold that will rescue her without putting an ounce of effort in to helping herself. Against the determination of the beautiful Alex (Murphy), he begins to see the path he needs to take. Cleverly scripted and directed, this dark, moody and rather depressing movie manages to be optimistic without ever subscribing to typical Hollywood norms, rather reflecting real reactions of real people in all too familiar situations.
The acting is good throughout, with all main cast members putting in gritty, realistic performances that quickly draw you in to the 8 Mile world. Eminem’s debut performance is impressive, although his best acting is left for the rap segments – the verbal acknowledgement of his realisations emoted through his final outburst bring a wonderfully intelligent conclusion: here is a man who has vented his sleeve publicly to a hundred people, yet the meaning of the outburst is lost on all but one, and hopefully the audience, which sums the film for me, a film that manages to deliver on many levels. My only complaint is that I, as a non-street talking Detroit inhabitant, found a lot of the dialogue hard to follow, not enough to miss the main plot points, but I did have to rewind the DVD a few times to work out what was being said. Many critics called this “Rocky with rap”. For me this suggests the critics either didn’t watch or understand the movie, if anything this has more of the feeling of Saturday Night Fever, which was more about a feeling, a culture and a population struggling to find more purpose, and with a modern twist, 8 Mile is a relevant film whose themes model life in inner cities world-wide.
The DVD presents a clear picture that maintains the moodiness of the night scenes with the grey urban grubbiness of the day scenes. Colour is purposely washed out throughout, but there’s little evidence of grain, and the picture is sharp. Both Dolby Digital 5.1 and DTS soundtracks are presented. Neither are tested particularly and run neck for neck until the finale, where the DTS seems to have more depth and atmosphere.
It was disappointing to find that there was no commentary on this disk – being that this is a semi-autobiographical piece it would be very interesting to hear Eminem’s take on the truth behind the fiction, as well as director Curtis Hanson’s take on producing such a movie. The making of 8 Mile goes some way to redeeming the disk, with a 10 minute featurette discussing the production, including interview footage with Eminem and Curtis Hanson. Next up is a Rap battles documentary (23 minutes), which documents the selection of freestyle rappers to go up against Eminem. We then see effectively deleted footage with the winners of the competition up against Eminem himself. Sexist, racist and homophobic throughout, but taken in context pretty amusing, though your mum might not like it. Listening to these guys going at each other is pretty amazing – quite how they manage to come up with insults like that AND make them rhyme is incredible, and it adds credence to the conclusion of the movie.
Music of 8 Mile is a blatant marketing ploy to get you to buy the CDs so we won’t discuss it further, but of real bonus is Eminem’s video to Superman, a pretty graphic video to a very cool song, but I was disappointed that the Lose Yourself video didn’t accompany it as one of the best songs I’ve heard in ages. Finally you get the Trailer to 8 Mile to complete the package. In terms of extras I thought it was a little light, the Rap battles is really interesting but the commentary is sorely missed on such a great movie. Loved the main feature, pity we didn’t get the two disk treatment to compliment it.
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