The title comes from the very successful hip hop album by rapper 50 Cents (aka Curtis Jackson). It has sold 12,000,000 copies.

50 Cents has had enormous subsequent success in the record world. For potential audiences who did not know these facts, it might be an indication that this film is not for them. It is for the fans, for those who know something about the world that Curtis Jackson emerged from, who know the black ghettoes, the drug-dealing and the guns, the violence and killings. It is also the world of gangsters who operate in the world of song and records (which came to the surface in the mid-1990s with the killing of singer-actor, Tupac Shakur). This has been documented in the arresting and alarming documentary which had worldwide release, Biggie and Tupac, which highlighted the hip-hop/rap rivalry between gangsters on the East coast and the west and the murder of Tupac and Biggie Smalls.

One might ask what Irish director Jim Sheridan is doing, making a film on this theme and with this style. After all, he directed My Left Foot, The Field, In the Name of the Father and In America. Sheridan claims that he is a fan of hip hop and is intrigued by this world. As a chronicler of groups on the margin, he is ready for this film and brings some flash and fire to it.

This is the world of Boyz ‘n the Hood only more so. This is the South Bronx from the 80s to the present. And it is the world that Curtis Jackson grew up in. He says that many of the incidents in the narrative are similar enough to what he experienced. (Screenwriter Tim Winter was hired to create the screenplay because he was, amongst other shows, a writer for The Sopranos.)

For many outsiders, this is an alien world. On the one hand, it can be a world of despair. Young African Americans absorb the ethos and are trapped. They have their moments of swagger. They can have a time of power and of easy money with drug deals. But, while they can live by gang codes, there are always power struggles and betrayals which lead to prison or death (or both). This is not a nice world – it would be comfortable to ignore it, even deny that it exists but it is a challenge to American society and to the African American neighbourhoods.

The film opens with a robbery, blacks trying to rip off Colombians, and Marcus (50 Cent’s character) being shot to death. His life passes before his and our eyes – back to his mother, the mystery of his father’s identity, his loving grandparents, his love for music, his love for Charlene, his mother’s brutal murder, his decision to be a dealer, the gang rivalry, vengeance killings, his imprisonment and befriending of Bama (Terrence Howard) who becomes his manager.

Interestingly the tagline is “Inside every man is the power to choose”. This means that the stance of the film is that, despite the harsh world, its brutality and exploitation, redemption is possible.

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