8 Mile (film)

8 Mile
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Curtis Hanson
Produced by	Curtis Hanson Brian Grazer Jimmy Iovine
Written by	Scott Silver
Starring	Eminem Kim Basinger Brittany Murphy Mekhi Phifer
Music by	Eminem
Cinematography	Rodrigo Prieto
Editing by	Jay Rabinowitz
Studio	Imagine Entertainment
Distributed by	Universal Pictures
Release date(s)	November 8, 2002 (2002-11-08)
Running time	110 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$41 million
Box office	$242,875,078

8 Mile is a 2002 American hip-hop drama film written by Scott Silver, directed by Curtis Hanson, and starring Eminem, Mekhi Phifer, Brittany Murphy, and Kim Basinger.

The film is an account of a young white rapper named Jimmy "B-Rabbit" Smith Jr. (Eminem) living in inner city Detroit, Michigan set in 1995, and his attempt to launch a rap career in an industry dominated by African Americans.

The film was a critical and financial success. Eminem won the Academy Award for Best Original Song for "Lose Yourself".

Plot

The film begins with protagonist Jimmy "B-Rabbit" Smith, Jr. (Eminem) at a local rap battle emceed by his friend David "Future" Porter (Mekhi Phifer). A nervous Rabbit chokes at the mic and exits the competition. Rabbit, a young and unhappy blue collar worker, is struggling with different aspects of his life. He has moved back north of 8 Mile to the rundown trailer home in Warren of his alcoholic mother Stephanie (Kim Basinger), his sister Lily (Chloe Greenfield), and his mother's abusive live-in boyfriend Greg (Michael Shannon). Rabbit is focused on getting his music career started, but he seems unable to catch a break. Just prior to the events of the film, he ends a relationship with his girlfriend Janeane (Taryn Manning), and during the film, begins a new relationship with Alex (Brittany Murphy), although it is later severely strained when he catches Alex with his friend Wink (Eugene Byrd) having sex in a studio.

Rabbit comes to realize that his life has remained largely the same since he graduated from high school. At first, he considers himself a victim of his circumstances and blames others for his problems. Over time, though, he begins to take responsibility for the direction of his life and realizes that he has a large degree of control over how it will go. He begins to question whether his group of friends, including Future, are holding themselves back from moving on to bigger things. With his onstage choke still fresh in his mind, he appears to decide that he will give up on or postpone his dream of a music career in favor of devoting more time to his day job and building a home life. Rabbit's newfound responsibility becomes evident to his supervisor at the factory as well. At the beginning of the film, when Rabbit requests extra shifts, his supervisor laughs at him (as he's usually late to work), but by the end, his improved attitude and performance earn him the extra work he had wanted. However, a late night shift conflicts with the next battle tournament. Rabbit initially doesn't want to go, but a visit from Alex changes his mind. Paul (Craig Chandler), a homosexual co-worker whom Rabbit stood up for earlier in the film, agrees to cover for him.

Rabbit's friends hail him throughout the film as an incredible rapper, but until this point the film only shows snippets of his skills. The tournament has three rounds, and in each of them Rabbit faces a member of the "Leaders of the Free World", the group that feuds with Rabbit and his friends throughout the film. Rabbit wins both of the first two rounds with progressively more impressive freestyle raps. In the last round, he is paired against Papa Doc (Anthony Mackie), the tournament's most feared battler and Jimmy's main antagonist throughout the storyline. Rabbit is aware that Doc knows all his weak points, so he decides to address them preemptively with his freestyle. Rabbit acknowledges without shame his white trash roots and the various humiliations the Free World clique have inflicted on him, and then uses the difficult life he's had as a springboard to reveal the truth about Papa Doc: despite passing himself off as a thug, he has a privileged background. Doc, whose real name is Clarence, attended Cranbrook, a private school located in upper class Bloomfield Hills, and lived all his life in a stable two-parent household. Rabbit makes a reference to "Shook Ones Pt. II", the beat that the DJ is spinning, by calling Papa Doc a "halfway crook", which sends the crowd into a frenzy. Doc is left with nothing to say but "yo" in rebuttal, drops the mic, and Rabbit takes the title. As Rabbit leaves the venue, Future suggests that he stay and celebrate his victory while also offering a position that would allow him to host battles at the shelter. Rabbit refuses, claiming he has to get back to work and do everything his own way, to which Future agrees. The final shot displays Rabbit walking away from the shelter, more confident in his future.

Cast

• Eminem as James (Jimmy) "B-Rabbit" Smith, Jr.
• Mekhi Phifer as David "Future" Porter
• Brittany Murphy as Alex Latorno
• Kim Basinger as Stephanie Smith
• Chloe Greenfield as Lily Smith
• Michael Shannon as Greg Buehl
• De'Angelo Wilson as DJ IZ
• Taryn Manning as Janeane
• Evan Jones as "Cheddar Bob"
• Omar Benson Miller as "Sol George"
• Eugene Byrd as "Wink"
• Anthony Mackie as "Papa Doc" (Clarence)
• Xzibit as Mike (Male Lunch Truck Rapper)
• Proof as "Lil Tic"
• Craig Chandler as Paul
• Obie Trice as Male parking lot rapper
• King Gordy as "Big O"
• John Singleton as Bouncer
• Miz-Korona as Vanessa (Female Lunch Truck Rapper)
• Brandon T. Jackson (uncredited) as a Chin Tiki club-goer

Reception

Critical reception

8 Mile opened to relatively positive reviews, with much of the praise going to Eminem's performance. It holds a 76% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film a 3 out of 4 stars. He praised Eminem's performance, as well as Basinger's. He said he wanted to see a sequel where Rabbit actually made it as a famous rapper.

The song "Lose Yourself", with music by Eminem, Jeff Bass and Luis Resto and lyrics by Eminem, won an Academy Award for Best Original Song and Grammy Awards for Best Male Rap Solo Performance and Best Rap Song. "Lose Yourself" also placed 93rd on AFI's 100 Years...100 Songs list. The song was later included on Eminem's greatest hits album Curtain Call: The Hits.

Box office

8 Mile opened at #1 with $51,240,555 in its opening weekend, then the second highest opening for an R-rated movie in the U.S. The film would go on to gross $116,750,901 in the domestic box office and $242,875,078 worldwide. The film's final domestic gross would hold the film at #3 in Box Office Mojo's "Pop Star Debuts" list, behind Austin Powers in Goldmember (Beyoncé Knowles) and The Bodyguard (Whitney Houston).

The 8 Mile DVD, which was released on March 18, 2003, generated $75 million in sales and rentals in its first week, making it the biggest DVD debut ever for an R-rated movie and putting it in the all-time Top 10 for first week home video sales for a movie.

Music

Main article: 8 Mile (soundtrack)

Music from and Inspired by the Motion Picture 8 Mile is the official music soundtrack to 8 Mile. Eminem features on five tracks from the album. It was released under the Shady/Interscope label and spawned the massive hit single "Lose Yourself". The album debuted at number one on the U.S. Billboard 200 Albums Chart that year with over 702,000 copies sold and 507,000 sold in the second week also finishing the year as the fifth best-selling album of 2002 with US sales of 3.2 million, despite only two months of release. It also reached #1 on the UK Compilations Charhe Australian ARIAnet Albums Chart. It featured Eminem's worldwide chart-topping single, "Lose Yourself". It also spawned a follow up soundtrack, More Music from 8 Mile, consisting of songs that appear in 8 Mile that were current singles during the film's time setting of 1995. The album was also made in a clean edition removing most of the strong profanity and violent content.

Parodies and allusions

• Eminem's single "Just Lose It" and its video featured a parody of the film.
• Scary Movie 3 heavily parodied many elements of this film, most notably the characters Jimmy and Future who were parodied as "George" and "Mahalik" (a pun on Mekhi Phifer's first name), portrayed by Simon Rex and Anthony Anderson respectively.
• Robot Chicken, which airs on Adult Swim, ran a short skit during the eighth episode of their second season featuring the Looney Tunes characters during the final rap battle of the film.
• "Weird Al" Yankovic did a parody of "Lose Yourself" entitled "Couch Potato" that appeared on his 2003 album Poodle Hat.
• The movie is referenced in The Cleveland Show episode "Harder, Better, Faster, Browner".
• Comedian Dave Chappelle made a parody of the film on his sketch comedy series Chappelle's Show.
• DeStorm Power references the film in his song "My Life is Like a Movie".

External links

• Official website
• 8 Mile (film) at the Internet Movie Database
• 8 Mile (film) at AllRovi
• 8 Mile (film) at Box Office Mojo
• 8 Mile (film) at Rotten Tomatoes
• 8 Mile (film) at Metacritic

Awards
Preceded by "If I Didn't Have You" from Monsters, Inc. by Randy Newman	Academy Award for Best Original Song 2002	Succeeded by "Into the West" from Return of the King by Fran Walsh, Howard Shore, and Annie Lennox