July
01
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Last Man Standing: Suge Knight and the Murders of Biggie & Tupac (18)
Last Man Standing: Suge Knight and the Murders of Biggie & Tupac (18)
Director: Nick Broomfield
Runtime: 1hr45m
Synopsis: This new documentary, exploring the involvement of LAPD in the shocking murders of legendary rappers Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur, puts events in a new light, directed by influential documentary filmmaker, Nick Broomfield.
After the conviction of Death Row Records CEO Suge Knight, with a sentence of 28-years for manslaughter, many people felt free to come forward with new information surrounding the murders.
Presenting new, never-before-seen evidence, this documentary connects the corrupt workings of Death Row Records, the gang-affiliated cops within the LAPD, the silence of other music industry figures, and the cover-up by police, who ignored information from former LAPD detective Russell Poole. What emerges is shocking collusion, deep-set corruption and perhaps the clearest picture to date of the truth of why these murders happened, and who was involved.
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0t3oY8WT8o
Influential English documentary film director, Nick Broomfield [Ghosts (2006), Battle for Haditha (2007), Aileen Wuornos: The Selling of a Serial Killer (1992), My Father and Me (2019)] revisits Los Angeles in search of new evidence of rap mogul Suge Knight’s involvement in the deaths of the legendary rappers Biggie Smalls and Tupac Shakur, in this rigorous sequel to his 2002 documentary: Biggie and Tupac.
Suge Knight, the former CEO of legendary rap music label Death Row Records was recently sentenced to 28 years imprisonment for manslaughter, in a long line of violent crimes not typically associated with a highly successful record executive.
Presenting new material and evidence never heard before, this film is the definitive story of Suge Knight and the murders of Biggie and Tupac.
It examines Death Row and how L.A.’s street gang culture had come to dominate its business workings as well as an association with corrupt LA police officers who were also gang affiliated. It would be this world of gang rivalry and dirty cops that would claim the lives of the world’s two greatest rappers, Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls. People have only now started talking since Suge commenced his 28-year sentence and the film comes up with new evidence showing the involvement of the LAPD in these murders and their attempt to conceal evidence.
Broomfield uses chilling interviews with former Death Row Record staff members, archive footage and still photography, all of which expose the culture of misogyny, gang violence and police corruption behind Suge Knight’s empire and even places LAPD at the murder scenes.
Very much a tale of power corrupting – the mothers of both Tupac Shakur and Biggie Smalls both lament what good friends the boys were, and how as hip hop superstars, they could have positively contributed to the world had they not been murdered in the mid-1990s.
Probably the definitive story of Suge Knight and the murders of Biggie and Tupac, this film exposes the particularly depressing fact that Death Row Records – rather than being a creative hub – was a disturbing, macho, violent, misogynistic criminal front and hip hop and rap music were merely offshoots.
In cinemas.
Images courtesy of DOGWOOF
