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Lauren Lazin’s documentary enshrining the abbreviated life of Tupac Shakur opens on a haunting note as the actor/rapper seems to speak from beyond the grave. "Told in Tupac’s own words," the film puts a Horatio Alger shine on the rapper’s self-proclaimed "thug life" as it relates his rise from poverty to hip-hop superstardom. Lazin touches on his stint as a drug dealer, the courtroom controversies, his jail term for sexual assault, his phoenix-like resurrection with Death Row Records, and that fatal blood feud with Biggie Smalls. MTV and Tupac’s mother, Afeni Shakur, a former Black Panther and recovered crack addict, provide the footage; the latter’s control of the project is evident from its heavy-handedness. Tupac heaps praise on his mother — no doubt to dispel his rep as a misogynist — and the details of his legal woes are left murky. The film’s most poignant moments present a vulnerable Tupac: humble and hungry on the way up and cathartic and introspective from behind bars. His music lives on, and Lazin’s portrait of a shooting star serves as a cautionary tale to the fast and furious. (90 minutes) At the Copley Place, the Fenway, the Fresh Pond, and the Circle/Chestnut Hill and in the suburbs.
BY TOM MEEK
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