Tupac Assassination: Battle for Compton Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Tupac Assassination: Battle for Compton Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 3, 2017

For a certain segment of the music loving populace, the immortal line “the day the music died”, iconized by Don McLean in his legendary song “American Pie”, would not refer to February 3, 1959, when Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson perished in an airplane crash, but instead to September 13, 1996, when rapper Tupac Shakur finally succumbed to a number of bullet wounds he received while cruising the boulevards of Las Vegas. Pac, as he is regularly referred to by friends, co-workers and colleagues in Tupac Assassination: Battle for Compton, had a brief, at times incendiary, career that continues to ripple through several modern currents of the music scene, but who died under controversial circumstances that also continue to swirl about all these years later. There has in fact been something of a cottage industry that has arisen in the wake (no pun intended) of Tupac’s murder, with books and documentaries appearing with fair regularity supposedly “solving” what actually happened. Some better informed fans may already be aware that this particular outing has an alternate title of Tupac Assassination III: Battle for Compton, with the Roman numeral appendix serving as a reminder that there are two other films in the Tupac Assassination “franchise” (and doesn’t that sound a little odd?). Tupac Assassination: Conspiracy or Revenge? appeared in 2007, co-produced by erstwhile Pac bodyguard Frank Alexander, who was understandably eager to clarify that his failure to protect Tupac didn’t mean he was involved in the killing. Kind of interestingly, given all the backstage intrigue involving Suge Knight and Death Row Records through the years, this documentary itself became a lightning rod for various accusations of mishandling of funds, leading to a lawsuit. Two years after Tupac Assassination: Conspiracy or Revenge? appeared to “clear everything up”, Tupac Assassination II: Reckoning appeared (in a continuing “tradition”, this film also has an alternate title, the somewhat shorter Tupac: Reckoning, which is how you’ll find it listed on the IMDb). There’s not a ton of data on this particular entry, and it seems like it was a straight to video release, and in fact even the IMDb seems to have conflated the first two offerings, as evidenced by release dates and even cover art. The second entry evidently presented more of the personal side of Tupac, including lots of interviews with friends and family, a tendency that is also part of Tupac Assassination: Battle for Compton. Those who have already journeyed down the rabbit hole of various conspiracy theories involving the death of Tupac will probably find more to “enjoy” (if that’s the right word) in this documentary, but even those folks may find the supposedly revelatory “information” in this piece less than definitive.

The Tupac story’s continuing influence isn’t limited to the Tupac Assassination series, and in fact 2017 is going to be a banner year for Tupac related releases. All Eyez on Me, a biopic of the late rapper, is scheduled for a theatrical release in just a couple of months (after many well publicized delays), A&E is resurrecting its vaunted Biography series and will (according to Variety) be featuring extended episodes devoted not just to Tupac, but to that “other” infamous rap murder of Notorious B.I.G. (AKA Biggie Smalls and/or Christopher Wallace), and there are several other projects that have been announced that have at least a tangential Pac connection, including both television and feature film offerings that will feature Los Angeles police characters who have some history with the still unsolved case. Tupac Assassination: Battle for Compton has its own plethora of “officials”, not necessarily relegated to the local constabulary, but the documentary’s incredibly far reaching set of interlocking theses means that some of these voices tend to be just part of the general rabble, rather than standout examples of clarity and logic.

With regard to that general blather, it’s probably instructive to include the following disclaimer that comes onscreen before the actual documentary begins:

The theories and observations herein are based largely on documents and witness testimony (expert and on scene). Great care has been taken to represent the most accurate illustration of our current understanding of the case and its evidence. That said, the people alleged to have performed certain acts have not been convicted of these acts in any court of law. They remain free and until the time comes that these individuals stand for their acts in court, the matter remains one of speculation and opinion only. Any statement made by any person interviewed in this is subject to validation and remains their personal opinion, even if it's stated as true.

All parties remain innocent until convicted in a Court of Law.

While that’s an understandable “don’t jump to conclusions” riff, it probably further undercuts and sense that Tupac Assassination: Battle for Compton is going to provide definitive answers as to what actually happened. The documentary, as mentioned above, takes an almost absurdly eclectic view of various theories, attempting to combine everything from illicit drug running to corruption on various police forces (including the titular Compton), to a mysterious note that is supposedly the lynchpin of this particular piece. Kind of ironically, while the actual murder element is never really decisively resolved (at least for this particular reviewer), there is a ton of really interesting material scattered throughout Tupac Assassination: Battle for Compton. The personal reminiscences of many folks who knew and worked with him are heartfelt and establish the fact that Pac was a force of nature with a rather unavoidably magnetic charisma going for him. But even more general information, like some rather interesting socioeconomic data detailing the migration of blacks from Watts to Compton in the mid-sixties, help to establish a context for conditions that ultimately gave birth to the whole rap industry, and of course to Tupac’s own take on everything.

Tupac Assassination: Battle for Compton Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Tupac Assassination: Battle for Compton is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of MVD Visual with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. Along with the pre-film text card quoted above, there's also this text card (excerpted) shown at the beginning of the film talking about video and audio sources:

Contained in the body of this work are "standard definition" video and telephone audio. Because of the age of the incidents discussed herein, the use of these forms of media are necessary and care has been taken to frame and present them in a manner we hope will provide maximum enjoyment and clarity.

(This particular text card then goes on to discuss the documentary's "fair use" of [supposedly] copyrighted material, and how the producers will "vigorously" defend any assertion to the contrary.)

As might be expected from a documentary cobbling together so many disparate source elements, the appearance of Tupac Assassination: Battle for Compton is pretty heterogeneous, and despite the assertion above that framing has been handled with care, unless some of the participants suffer from extremely odd head shapes, some kind of peculiar looking anamorphic stretching (and even squeezing) is sometimes on display. Video sources also vary widely in clarity and detail levels, including even of what one assumes is the most recently filmed material. On the whole, while there's really nothing huge to complain about here, especially with an understanding that some of these video sources are inherently ragged looking, there's also not much here that is going to send videophiles' pulses racing.

Tupac Assassination: Battle for Compton Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Tupac Assassination: Battle for Compton has a perfectly workmanlike LPCM 2.0 mix that offers good support for what is in essence a talking head piece (along with some narration). All voices on all footage at least relatively recently shot sound fine, while (as alluded to in the quote in the video section above), some older archival audio shows signs of its age and technology used to memorialize it. Perhaps surprisingly, there's not a ton of rap in this piece, but occasionally ominous sounding underscore cues resonate with sufficient clarity.

Tupac Assassination: Battle for Compton Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

There are no supplements on the disc, and not even a Setup Menu (there are no subtitles available and only one audio option).

Tupac Assassination: Battle for Compton Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

I was kind of unexpectedly taken by Tupac Assassination: Battle for Compton, but perhaps oddly more so with regard to some of the tangential information offered, especially some of the socioeconomic data that gave birth to an already nascent civil unrest, than with regard to who did or did not murder Tupac. In fact the documentary never really satisfactorily closes that loop, so mystery lovers (or at least those who like seeing mysteries solved) may find this a less than satisfying enterprise. For those simply interested in the story and various competing theories, along with a rather picayune amount of sidebar material, Tupac Assassination: Battle for Compton provides decent technical merits and a rather compelling story. Recommended.