Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2005) |
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Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2005) |
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| General | Extras | ||
| Category | Action |
Main Menu Audio & Animation-. Featurette-Making Of-A Portrait Of An Artist Theatrical Trailer |
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| Rating |
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| Year Of Production | 2005 | ||
| Running Time | 111:40 (Case: 134) | ||
| RSDL / Flipper | RSDL (60:46) | Cast & Crew | |
| Start Up | Menu | ||
| Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | Jim Sheridan |
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Studio
Distributor |
 Paramount Home Entertainment |
Starring |
50 Cent Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje Joy Bryant Omar Benson Miller Tory Kittles Terrence Howard Ashley Walters Marc John Jefferies Viola Davis Sullivan Walker Serena Reeder Bill Duke Mpho Koaho |
| Case | Amaray-Opaque-Secure Clip | ||
| RPI | $34.95 | Music |
Gavin Friday Quincy Jones Maurice Seezer |
| Video | Audio | ||
| Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None | English Dolby Digital 2.0 (448Kb/s) | |
| Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 2.30:1 | ||
| 16x9 Enhancement |
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| Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
| Original Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 | Miscellaneous | |
| Jacket Pictures | No | ||
| Subtitles |
English English for the Hearing Impaired Danish Dutch Norwegian Finnish Swedish |
Smoking | Yes |
| Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
| Action In or After Credits | Yes, 50 Cent performing on stage | ||
Produced by MTV, Get Rich or Die Tryin' is a sort of Gangsta Rappa version of Purple Rain. It is a gritty and blunt semi-biographical film from the unlikely combination of acclaimed Irish filmmaker Jim Sheridan, The Sopranos screenwriter Terence Winter, and US rap-star 50 Cent.
Cutis Jackson is far better known by his rap-name, 50 Cent. Born in 1976, 50 Cent grew up without a father. When he was eight years old, 50 Cent's mother was murdered in their South Bronx home in a drug deal. The now orphaned 50 Cent moved in with his grandparents. 50 Cent soon became a drug courier and drug dealer himself, and as a child he sold crack cocaine on the street at night to raise "sneaker money". When he grew older, he recruited his own drug crew from the streets, and 50 Cent eventually did time in prison on drug charges in 1994.
50 Cent had always loved rap music, and loved rapping himself. In prison, the boredom led him to start recording some of his rap songs. After being released from gaol, 50 Cent enjoyed limited success with some local airplay, but one of his songs, which criticised a rival drug lord, resulted in 50 Cent being shot nine times in 2000.
50 Cent was lucky to survive the attempted murder. But despite one of the bullets lodging in his jaw, once he recovered he resumed his rap career. 50 Cent might have stayed a small-time local gangsta rappa, except Eminem happened to hear some of his tunes on a mix tape which he later played for famed rap-producer Dr Dre. Dre liked what he heard, and 50 Cent was given a contract and a track on Eminem's 8 Mile soundtrack.
Now signed to a major recording label, 50 Cent immediately found multi-platinum success with his first gangsta rappa album, Get Rich or Die Tryin' (2003). Indeed, armed with the catchy singles In Da Club, If I Can't, P.I.M.P, 21 Questions and Wanksta, his first album on a major label broke all records for music sales for first week sales of an album in any genre. In a world of manufactured music stars and American/Australian Idol "recording artists", 50 Cent was marketed as "the real deal" - he was a man from the streets, and over the catchy musical hooks and hip hop beats his almost monophonic tunes oozed a gritty realism and aggressive black-urban F-You! attitude that was simply irresistible on the pop charts.
His choices in life were perhaps best explained in his tune Hustler's Ambition, which seemed to provide a voice for all poor black urban kids and gang-bangers who see the illegal drug industry as their ticket out of the poverty of ghetto life:
"Look at me, this is the life I chose
Niggaz around me so cold, man my heart done froze
I build an empire on the low, the narc's don't know
I'm the weatherman, I'll take that cocoa leaf, and make that snow
Sit back, watch it turn to doe, watch it go out the door
O after O, you know
Homie I'm just triple beam, dreamin
Niggaz be scheming, I feind to live the good life
The feinds are just fiendin'
Conceal my weapon nice and neat, so you can't see
The penitentiary is definitely out the question for me
I want the finer things in my life
So I hustle
Nigga you get in my way while I'm tryin' to get mine
And I'll buck you
I don't care who you run with or where you from
nigga f*ck you
I want the finer things in my life
So I hustle"
(From 50 Cent's Hustlers Ambition)
50 Cent's second major label album, The Massacre (2005), contained the singles Candy Shop, Outta Control and Just a Lil Bit, and the sales from this album confirmed his status as one of the world's leading hip hop stars, along with his new friends and colleagues Eminem and Snoop Dogg.
Following in the successful wake of Curtis Hansen and Eminem's movie 8 Mile (2002), which was based on Eminem's life, Get Rich or Die Tryin' is a semi-biographical film based on 50 Cent's life.
In the movie, Marcus (Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson) is sent to live with his grandparents after his drug dealing mother is killed. His grandparents' house is already teeming with warring children, and Marcus ends up living unhappily in the laundry room sleeping on a fold-out bed.
Moving out of their home, and selling drugs full-time, Marcus is arrested. While in prison he starts taking his rapping more seriously. Initially he’s not very good, but soon other prisoners, and even some of the guards, begin singing along with his flow.
While in prison, a stranger saves Marcus from another prisoner in an unexpected razor attack in the shower. The stranger, Bama (Terrence Howard), becomes Marcus' friend, and then his 'manager'.
While in gaol, Marcus is visited by his girlfriend Charlene (Joy Bryant), who informs him that he is to become a father. Following the birth of his son, Marcus agrees with Bama to pursue a career as a rapper once they are released from prison.
On his release, however, his former mentor, drug lord Majestic (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) wants Marcus, his former "employee of the month", back on the street selling drugs. When Marcus disagrees, a feud begins between the two. Choosing music and not guns as his weapon, Marcus write a rap tune criticising Majestic and the Drug Lord responds by sending one of his henchmen to kill Marcus.
Despite being shot nine times, Marcus recovers, and with the support of Charlene he pursues his dream as a rapper. Sadly, it's only at the end of the film as the credits roll that we see the triumphant end of Marcus' journey. On stage, with mike in hand, 50 Cent is in full flow rocking the mike and the crowd and showing the world why he deserves to be there.
While the film lacks the energy and frequent rap performances of 8 Mile, screenwriter Terence Winter of The Sopranos fame has provided a script with much more depth. In a sense, the movie is about Marcus' search for a father, but more importantly it's about Marcus' search for meaning in his life.
Director Jim Sheridan (My Left Foot, The Field, In the Name of the Father, The Boxer, In America) again shows us his skill in portraying poverty and violence on the big screen without resorting to sentimentality.
Like Craig Brewer’s Hustle and Flow, the film neither glamorises nor condemns a corrupt lifestyle. While one might thus consider the film amoral, as it makes no moral choices, rather I see it as non-judgmental. The filmmakers accept that drug abuse is part of our society and seem to have decided against providing us with yet another cautionary morality tale about drugs, rather focussing on exploring and illustrating the reality behind all the gangsta hype in hop hop music.
Jim Sheridan has also worked brilliantly with the non-actor 50 Cent. Sheridan has cleverly used 50 Cent's acting limitations as the film's asset. It seems that 50 Cent only expresses himself through his flow. The lack of expression provided by 50 Cent points to his character's emotional shell. He grew up an unloved orphan - a stranger to love - and was further hardened through life on the streets, and through doing hard time in prison. He remains aloof and emotionally distant from those around him.
To balance this approach, Sheridan has surrounded 50 Cent with dynamic and expressive black actors, such as Terrence Howard, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje and Joy Bryant.
Overall, while a little too long, the film works well and it maintained my interest throughout.
Overall, the transfer is a little grainy but very good, as one would expect of a recent film.
The widescreen transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.30:1, 16x9 enhanced.
The sharpness is good, as seen in the aerial shot of the traffic at 44:28. This might not sound very PC, but any cinematographer will tell you of the challenges of filming black actors in dark environments. The difficulty lies in lighting these scenes so that we can see their faces clearly, but not light them in a way that they still look unnatural. Despite these challenges, the transfer's black level and shadow detail are excellent. For example, consider the detail in the dark house party at 30:29, or in the interior of the dark prison cell at 61:00.
The colour is excellent, and a well saturated palette of hues is used in the storytelling. The skin tones are accurate.
There are no problems with MPEG or film-to-video artefacts. Tiny film artefacts appear fairly frequently throughout. Considering the excessive film grain and the frequency of film artefacts, I wonder if a cheaper film stock was used for this production?
English, English for the Hearing Impaired, Danish, Dutch, Norwegian, Finnish, and Swedish subtitles are provided. The English subtitles are accurate.
This is a single-sided, dual-layer disc with the layer change placed at 60:46. The break is expertly placed when the scene goes entirely to black, so it is not noticeable at all. The feature is divided into 18 chapters.
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There is only one audio option on the disc: English Dolby Digital 5.1 (448Kb/s).
Despite the extensive use of ADR, the dialogue quality and audio sync are excellent throughout.
The film's score is provided by Gavin Friday, Quincy Jones, and Maurice Seezer. Obviously 50 Cent also provides some tunes, most notably the singles from the film's soundtrack, Hustlers Ambition and Window Shopper.
As a dialogue-based drama, with occasional moments of violence, I wasn't expecting much in the way of surround presence or LFE activity; and to be honest, the film could quite happily work with a Dolby Digital stereo surround-encoded audio track. Anyway, as expected, the surround sound mix is fairly front-heavy, but the rear speakers are used at times to help carry the score and provide ambience or effects, such as the shooting at 7:36 or the traffic at 12:35. This maintains a nice soundfield while keeping the viewer firmly focussed on the screen.
The subwoofer is also utilised very subtly, and mostly to support the bass-heavy hip hop music, such as the deep bass oozing through the walls at 23:12.
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In terms of extras, this DVD is definitely not fully tricked out homies.
Considering the film was produced by MTV, I was expecting music videos for the singles from the film's soundtrack, Hustlers Ambition and Window Shopper. An audio commentary by 50 Cent and/or Jim Sheridan would have also been appreciated.
Animated with audio
Shot mainly in Dublin, this short featurette glimpses behind-the-scenes of the movie, but lacks any coherent structure. 50 Cent explains how Bono introduced him to Jim Sheridan, and Sheridan explains his interest in 50 Cent and the story. We also get to see 50 Cent's real grandparents and his son. 50 Cent explains how he turned to a life of crime in his youth, and in a very brief appearance Gavin Friday, Quincy Jones, and Maurice Seezer discuss the difficulties in scoring a film of this nature. The featurette is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.78:1, non-16x9 enhanced, with Dolby Digital stereo audio.
Presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1, non-16x9 enhanced, with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
Get Rich or Die Tryin' has been released on DVD in Region 1.
The Region 4 DVD misses out on:
The Region 1 DVD misses out on:
Despite the R1's trailers, I would call it even. Our version is also identical to the R2 (UK) version.
An interesting look at the reality behind all the gangsta hype in hop hop music. In short . . . Yo homie, dis disc be a tribute to Fiddy Cent, dawd - real ghettolicious like. Word!
The video quality is grainy but good.
The audio quality is very good, albeit quite front-heavy.
The extras are slim but genuine.
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| Extras |  |
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| Review Equipment | |
| DVD | Pioneer DV-535, using S-Video output |
| Display | Grundig Elegance 82-2101 (82cm, 16x9). Calibrated with Video Essentials. This display device is 16x9 capable. |
| Audio Decoder | Built in to amplifier/receiver. Calibrated with Video Essentials. |
| Amplification | Sony STR DE-545 |
| Speakers | Sony SS-V315 x5; Sony SA-WMS315 subwoofer |