'Juice' and what might have been with Tupac Shakur

Tupac Shakur in Juice

Revisiting the 1992 urban crime thriller Juice, twenty years after the death of its breakout star Tupac Shakur, is an edifying experience -- particularly for fans of the late hip-hop icon.

This is blasphemy in some circles, but I've always sort of agreed with the character Chris Rock played in Top Five when it comes to Shakur.

Sure, he may have morphed into a revolutionary political hero, but he also just as easily could have been the dark-skinned villain in any number of Tyler Perry movies.

It's easy to project a lot on to him, he certainly had a lot of potential both as an actor, rapper and just as a culture force to reckoned with. Whether has was actually the greatest rapper of all time is certainly debatable, but he may be the genre's most distinct star.

His unique and compelling charisma are on full display in Juice, a movie he not only steals but owns from the moment he appears on screen. Re-watching it I was surprised to see how far down he's billed -- especially since he is so prominently featured on the poster and because his manic character Bishop tends to set most of the action in motion.

Directed by longtime Spike Lee cinematographer Ernest Dickerson, Juice was one of many gritty, urban-themed crime films (Boyz n the Hood, Menace II Society) to come out of the early-1990s. They were not really exploitation films, and, if anything, these violent, profane movies were very much a reflection of times.

Today, some of the more crude aspects of the storytelling may not hold up as well, but there is an undeniably authentic energy that powers this film. It stars Omar Epps as Q, a teenage wanna be hip-hop DJ caught between his desire to pursue a legitimate career and his friends who seem to be drifting towards criminality.

The most volatile among his crew is Bishop (Shakur), who seems to have a death wish. He watches the James Cagney classic White Heat and actually romanticizesCagney's choice to burn alive rather than surrender to authorities, and he takes sadistic pleasure in the notion that he has the ability to take life.

In one famous scene he tells Epps' character that "I'm the one you need to worry about," but really he represents the kind of violent youth -- black or white -- we should all fear, the one who has nothing to lose.

And rather than present this character as a purely one-note bad guy, Shakur lends him a gravitas and vulnerability that might not be altogether evident on first viewing. But there is a wordless scene early in the film -- a moment Bishop shares with his shell-shocked father (its implied that he was a felon himself) -- that speaks volumes about his self-image.

Meanwhile, while Bishop is a bully, he too is bullied himself, and his madness is really a byproduct of his environment, not necessarily the result of some kind of inherent inhumanity.

"He knew different stuff from different facets of life," hie friend and Naughty by Nature frontman Treach recently said. "That's what made him be able to get into that character like that and make that character seem so real, because he had his own life experiences that made him phenomenal at bringing that out through the music and through the film."

Shakur would go on to act in a few more films, some more forgettable than others, but he always was eminently watchable on-screen. Who knows if he would go on to give Oscar-caliber performances, but he was a star for sure, and Juice is a true testament to that fact.