Review: All Eyez on Me (15)

It was a tantalising glimpse at one of the defining artists of a generation, who took hip hop by the scruff of its bling-laden neck in the 1980s and 1990s.

Director Benny Boom throws the microphone solely to Shakur in All Eyez On Me and fashions two decades of political activism, gang warfare and strife into an overlong and dull montage of a life cut tragically short in a drive-by shooting on the brightly lit Las Vegas strip.

Three screenwriters choose a clunky framing device to bring the central figure into woozy focus. A nameless interviewer visits Shakur (Demetrius Shipp Jr) in Clinton Correctional Facility in 1995. In a series of flashbacks, Shakur recalls his formative years in New York City, watching police victimise his mother Afeni (Danai Gurira), who is a defiant and active member of the Black Panther Party. He forms a close friendship with Jada Pinkett (Kat Graham) and joins the group Digital Underground before striking out on his own.

Gradually, Shakur’s friendship with fellow performer Biggie Smalls (Jamal Woolard) deteriorates, lighting the fuse on the infamous east and west coast rap war.

All Eyez On Me is littered with lyrical one-liners but a clear sense of what made Shakur tick is absent.