I love hip hop. I love East Coast hip hop, I love West Coast hip hop. Few of my mornings pass without a soundtrack from the likes of Dead Prez, Mos Def or Lauryn Hill, as well as their UK counterparts – Akala, Foreign Beggars, Skinnyman etc. So, the prospect of a biopic detailing the all to brief life of one Notorious B.I.G (Christopher Wallace) with a healthy serving of Tupac, Lil Kim and Faith Evans thrown in, sounded like a ‘gotta see’ kinda movie. I am of course talking about Notorious – which has recently made it onto regulation rotation over at Sky Movies.

For those of you that don’t know, Notorious B.I.G was shot and killed in 1997 at the age of 24 amidst an on going East Vs West coast hip hop feud, which had already claimed the life of fellow rapper, Tupac Shakur. A true rags-to-riches story, Christopher began his life as an overweight kid in Brooklyn’s deprived Bedford-Stuyvestant neighbourhood (a role played by Christopher’s own son, Christoper Jordan Wallace) and then found himself as a drug dealer, a father, a convict and upon release from prison, a multimillion dollar hip hop recording artist. The stuff movies are made of!

Which makes it all a more of a crying shame that this film isn’t better. Here is a life time which sums up the highs and lows of hip hop - it demonstrates how it can be used as a tool of escapism and opportunity, but does not ignore the at times dark underbelly that accompanies the scene . Yes, Biggie was a genius and yes, his music was allowing him to channel his street savvy into something meaningful – but he also cheated on the women he loved, dealt drugs and embodied all the braggadocio, machismo and excess that rap stars have been both vilified and celebrated for. Biggie is a fascinating subject – a gift to any film maker – but somehow, Notorious manages to ignore all of this.

Firstly, the characterisation. It’s clear from the amount of action Christopher packed in to his brief 24 years he was a pretty explosive and complicated character – but instead, he’s portrayed as a foul mouthed, lazy and self indulgent pig. He calls women ‘bitches’, he smokes a lot of weed and picks up some pretty groupies and then brags to his entourage about this lyrical prowess and talent. The film doesn’t even try to explain who he is or why he does these things – how did he feel after he got out of prison? How did he deal with fatherhood? Where did he get his inspiration from? All remains unanswered – instead there are just lots of glossy party scenes where he sits dressed in outlandish clothes, surrounded by beautiful women.

The same can be said for his supporting cast – Lil Kim – an ambitious ‘mall girl’ from New York is reduced to an angry ‘bitch’, his long suffering wife, Faith Evans is simply serene if not downcast, his mother is saintly and apparently unbothered by the at times immorality of her sons behaviour and finally, Tupac is the ‘revolutionary’ who speaks about three lines in the entire film – one of which is about Malcolm X to reaffirm his ‘radical philosophy’.

Offensive is not the word.

However, don’t be fooled into thinking that the energy saved from bothering to develop characters was expended anywhere else. The script is cliche ridden – all ‘hood speak’ – money, rims and ho’s, mixed up with inspirational ‘the sky’s the limit’ misguided optimism. Gritty scenes where Biggie deals crack to a pregnant addict are neatly tidied up when we see the same woman years later doing fine with a healthy kid, and the severity of the cross-country feud is dealt with in about twenty minutes, and really doesn’t seem that serious…

The film doesn’t entirely flinch away from the shortcomings of Biggies life, and of the industry which he inhabited, but it doesn’t even attempt to explain why they existed, who it involved, and why we should care. As it continues and we near his death, the sentimentality kicks in. Rather than a quickie with Lil Kim he opts to play with his daughter, he’s distraught when his mother  tells him she has cancer and the same when he hears of Tupac’s death in Las Vegas. Behind all the hard talking and gangsta posturing, a gentle, honourable soul cracks through.

To say it’s incomprehensible is to be polite. Notorious is a frustrating, fluffy whistlestop tour through the life of Biggie Smalls, and a rose-tinted, shallow look at hip hop and the music industry. Produced by Christopher’s mother and Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs (both come off very well in the film, incidentally), it’s my fault for expecting something serious and worthwhile from this story and this film. What I wanted was a new, intimate perspective on the life and times of Notorious BIG, what I got was sentimental, patchy and patronising. I imagine what the pair were going for was a ’sky’s the limit’ and ‘anything is possible’ moral for ‘hood kids across America, what it actually said was ‘get rich, or die trying’.

Disappointingly sweet – but with no after taste.