Get Rich or Die Tryin'

Street hustler turned rapper Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson makes his screen debut here, playing…a street hustler turned rapper. Unfortunately, while 50 Cent has mojo enough to command the screen, he cannot overcome the tedious sense that we've seen all of this before, nor can the film's sober intentions overcome the feeble, lifeless script. All of which makes this a major disappointment from director Jim Sheridan, who gave us 1989's My Left Foot and 2003's luminous In America, but seems to have two left feet in his first behind-the-camera foray with a non-Irish-themed film. Perhaps it's not so much the universal tale that Sheridan and screenwriter Terence Winter (a multiple award-winner for The Sopranos) seem to think: sure, most everyone wants to get rich, but plenty of folks—black, white, red, yellow—see no great virtue or drama in the "die tryin'" part, at least not in the courting death daily routine of a drug dealer/armed robber. The makers of Get Rich or Die Tryin' have assured interviewers that the film is about how a life of crime is no way to make a living, but if that's the case, then why does the audience end up with the sense that a rapper ain't the real deal unless he's lived the gangsta life? Optional. [Note: Available in either widescreen or full screen versions, DVD extras include a 29-minute “A Portrait of an Artist” making-of featurette, and trailers. Bottom line: a small extras package for an uneven film.] (M. Johanson)