Murder Was the Case: The Movie

Murder Was the Case: The Movie (1995)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

This eighteen-minute video has Snoop Dogg being shot down by a trio of rivals but he makes a deal with the Devil to come back to life.

There's really not too much plot for this promotional film but it's kind of funny watching this film today. I was in middle school when this was released and I still remember the various controversies that were going around about the language, the violence and of course the nudity. What's funny today is that all of these elements are incredibly light and there's really nothing offensive here. As it stands, there's no doubt that this short isn't a masterpiece but at the same time it's a mildly entertaining mixture of the rap culture and horror film. Snoop was a big fan of horror movies and you can see that influence here. He's certainly entertaining and the song selections are good enough.

Dr. Dre directed this violent, supposedly "autobiographical" film by rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg about his fictional death, but it's really more of an excuse to make a extended music video for the title song, intermixed with live performance and interview segments. Far better than the other Death Row video releases, this is still only for nostalgic die-hard fans of Snoop when he was a Doggy, as it contains some footage of interest. Murphy (of Chapelle's Show), who plays Snoop's killer, is Eddie's brother. DVD special edition contains extra music videos by Snoop from his Death Row era, as well as "Natural Born Killers". Excellent soundtrack, of no real relation to the movie, is also available.

I bought the DVD to this movie, and although it had many of

Snoop Dogg's music videos and concert footage, the actual short

film itself was pretty bad. It generally centered around a short

gunbattle scene in front of a liquor store and it was pretty bad. It

was unrealistic and wasnt very exciting at all. But thats it. Dont

bother renting or buying this movie. The regular version includes

the 18-minute short film combined with 36 minutes more of

concert and other footage for a total film length of 54 minutes. But

this movie was bad. Even if you consider watching it at a friend's

house, try to avoid this turkey and do something better with your

time. AVOID THIS FILM

My friend and I were at a Cactus Music store and we were in the "music videos" section. It was there that we stumbled across the gem that is the _Murder was the Case_ movie. It was $5.99. I mean, I had some ideas about what went on in this movie (from the shortened MTV music video), but there is nothing like seeing it. It is a pretty fun little twenty minutes.

Charles Murphy plays a character named "JC". For those of you who saw CB4, JC is pretty much a reprisal of his role as Gusto. Anyway, Snoop went and got JC's girlfriend pregnant and JC finds out about it. So he goes out with some of his friends to do a drive-by on Snoop. <start music>

Now I'll just say right now that I don't totally get what happens in Snoop's song. He gets shot and then talks to Satan and Satan brings him back to life. So he smokes a lot of pot, and pisses Satan off. Satan sees it fit to send him to jail for his crimes or something like that. Hey, I'd be lying if I said that I understood it, but that's what I can deduce from the lyrics.

Yes, this is in a lot of ways just a long music video, but there are a couple of parts that really make the experience worth it. For example, JC starts to shoot at the ambulence that is transporting Snoop's body and one of the stoned ambulence drivers pulls out a gun! Oh, and there are a few explosions and things like that. It is a lot like the N.W.A. videos from 1991 with the nudity, profanity, marijuana, and guns and things like that.

So now is the time to ask yourself: do you like gangsta rap? Would you like to see what a 20 minute music video glorifying all sorts of immorality and violence? Interested in Snoop's acting debut or Dr. Dre's directing debut? If the answer to any of these questions is "yes", then by all means see _Murder was the Case_.

I'll just point out that the tape comes with other funny stuff, like a brief video clip of the Dogg Pound getting high and listening to their own music and driving around Long Beach. Oh and there are these "serious" interview segments with Snoop where he tries to be really profound and pretentious. Its so funny. Plus, there's also "What's My Name?"(the video that single-handedly killed morphing technology as a trend), "Gin and Juice", and "Doggy Dogg World" music videos and the Ice Cube and Dr. Dre director's cut of "Natural Born Killaz" (Ice Cube and Dr. Dre reenact OJ!). That last video alone is worth the price of this tape!

Whether you call this a short film or a long music video, it utterly fails on both fronts. You would think with such creative talented people involved that they could have churned out something better than this. 1st year film students and amateur youtubers could have done much better. This lacks both style and substance and makes you wonder why they bothered to make or release this in the first place. This served as nothing more than a vehicle for the platinum selling soundtrack, which was quite good, however only 4 songs that appear on the soundtrack actually appear on the film, and the most recognizable title track was a re-release from Snoop's solo album. Even as a big fan of Death Row's music, I thought this film was terrible. You would think they might have wanted to give a visual window into the style and creativity that fueled some of the best rap music of the 90's, but instead you get 16 minutes of boring unmitigated garbage. Even looking back at this over 20 years later, this film lacks any appeal whatsoever even for nostalgic purposes. It doesn't even showcase any of the other rappers who were on the label at the time. Just Snoop and a bunch of D level actors, if they can even be called that. This film was poorly conceived and poorly executed. I understand the idea of them wanting to branch out into film, but if this was the best they could do they shouldve just shelved the whole idea. This video is freely available on youtube. I don't think anyone would even want to try to claim the copyright on this crap. But even freely available, this isn't even worth 16 minutes of your time. Even if you are the biggest Snoop fan I would say skip this and forget that it ever existed. Home movies are more interesting.