Biggie & Tupac

There are many, many legitimate reasons for finding the attention-seeking documentarian Nick Broomfield intensely irritating. He’s an absolute chancer, a comical parody of the good old English upper-class twit, who has remarkably managed to persuade the public at large that his rank amateurism is in fact maverick deconstruction. He also cynically hovers around subjects like prostitution and celebrity death to ensure maximum self-publicity. Both the appalling Kurt & Courtney and Biggie & Tupac. go for the most extreme and sensationalist angles as a means of exploring their respective subject matters.

There are, though, important differences between these films. In Kurt, the sight of Broomfield trawling unethically around lowlife flop-houses in order to find individuals willing to support his outrageous Cobain death theory made for extremely uncomfortable viewing, and even the most fervent Courtney bashers had to raise an eyebrow at the film’s ill-founded accusations against her.

With Biggie & Tupac , the link between the rap-stars’ deaths and the police is suggested rather than explored in any depth, but it seems slightly more plausible. Certainly, the case presented by ex-detective and LAPD officer Russell Poole – which points the finger at both police corruption and Death Row Records co-founder Marion ’Suge’ Knight – seems worthy of further investigation than given here.

Fortunately, what makes the film compelling is nothing to do with Broomfield’s worst attempts at investigative journalism. As sheer sensational tabloid trash, the enthralling subject matter ensures that Biggie & Tupac is an absolute triumph. Besides, the epic scale of the East Coast/West Coast rivalry within the rap ‘community’ is so inherently engrossing that even Broomfield’s Me-Me-Me approach can’t detract from the drama.

Unmissable in a car-crash kind of way.