The 50 Cent Documentary That Documents Nothing

50 Cent - Refuse 2 Die came out on DVD in November 2005 and at the top of the DVD cover it reads The UNAUTHORIZED Biography.

That didn't keep the makers of this DVD from trying their best to make it come across as a project 50 Cent had participated in, having someone by the name of Leviticus Richardson do a first-person narration throughout the entire documentary. The narration is often redundant and sounds a lot like someone is trying to make 50 Cent take notice and like the filmmakers for what they've done.

Basically, this DVD is made to show off a company's graphics; a few generic scenes of drug dealers or users, cops, street scenes, or whatever other footage they needed to represent the street life, switch off with animation you find in most console games, but originality as far as details of a life story are concerned, you won't find them.

The DVD is a little too desperately trying to be unique. A short "history" of Jamaica, Queens, is supposed to sound like a news report and frequently, interviews are started within an animation with a bit of fizzle and crackle added, to make it look like someone is turning on a TV and voila, here comes the interview.

Of course we don't ever really see anybody interviewing anyone, so these scenes could be taken from other documentaries or interviews.

Basically, this DVD tells a minimal story of 50 Cent's upbringing and rise to stardom, but nothing more than one could find on any fan site or in a magazine story.

There is nothing interesting or new within this whole DVD. Heck, I don't really know a thing about 50 Cent, don't own an album, never followed his doings, but even I didn't hear anything new. Particularly since half the narration concentrates on empty phrases about how tough 50 Cent is and how messed up the hip hop game is, etc. There's hardly any real information.

As a matter of fact, there is hardly any 50 Cent in it, either. A few photos and a few bits and pieces from performance videos are thrown in here and there, but mostly, it's all just an effort to show off the animation.

Some of the scenes leave you clueless as to what you're even looking at. At one point we're just looking at a bunch of women fondling each other. No clue if this is part of a music video or just something the filmmakers thought looked good so they threw it in.

Then again, I also don't quite understand what the black and white silent movie era footage of chubby white Vaudeville dancers has to do with 50 Cent. Heck, I don't even know what endless scenes of an animated car driving around animated streets is supposed to tell me, other than "Look at our graphics."

The DVD "stars" 50 Cent's father Curtis Jackson Sr., DMC, Treach and DJ Skribble.

The setup option allows for 5.1 surround sound or stereo surround sound and English or Spanish subtitles.

The Special Features, preceded by a graphic of a hand opening and diamonds twirling on each finger, contains:

Animation Gallery (for those who want to see the car drive around the animated city for a little longer), which pretty much rehashes the same images seen throughout the movie, only without the narration this time.

G-Unit Photo Shoot - apparently, throughout a 50 Cent photo shoot, somebody got to hold a video camera and take a bit of footage of 50 Cent having his pictures taken. Some boring, redundant beat in the background is the only noise that comes with that minute-long footage.

Massive Swerve - More animation. Not sure why they bothered to even copyright this one, I doubt anybody would bother stealing it. It's about some J-Lo butted chicks in clubs, someone throwing back a few beers, some drugs and then a fight and back to some big-butted chick, this one with a tattoo. If there ever was a plot, it escaped.

The Making of ... After some completely idiotic animation of a gun firing a few rounds, we get to pick from animation sketches & storyboard (like I want more of that ...), 3D animation, 3D City, $20 House (a rotating animation of a house ...), KSpawn Freestyle (no clue who he is, and he's about as exciting as the animated house) and Filmmaker's Commentary.

This DVD seems like little more than a few people trying to show off their graphics but not having enough ideas to make a video game, so they made a documentary by grabbing available footage and slapping it together with their graphics.