8 Mile

Rapper Eminem turns movie star as an inner-city Detroit youth trying to find his place in a hostile world. Eminem’s acting won’t disappoint his fans; they’ll see what they want to see in his flaccid, slack-jawed face and those huge eyes that go in a blink from deer-in-the-headlights to sullen truculence. Director Curtis Hanson, with his flair for grungy realism, surrounds his star with a good supporting cast (including Brittany Murphy, Mekhi Phifer and Eugene Byrd), but Eminem himself comes fully to life only during his raps—which the film unwisely confines to the last 20 minutes. Scott Silver’s script, mining a formula that stretches from Purple Rain all the way back to Jailhouse Rock, weighs things down with I-gotta-be-me clichés. As Eminem’s slutty mother, Kim Basinger is low-camp hilarious.