Biopics necessarily mythologize their subjects, but few go so far as to include a verse from Psalms as a central motif. Even Walk the Line, a fine but overrated film about Johnny Cash, was willing to dispel some of the mystery surrounding the Man in Black to keep the audience's interest. Notorious, George Tillman Jr.'s new film about the life of Christopher “Biggie Smalls” Wallace, while full of excellent performances and subtle, expressive photography, is ultimately undersold by the filmmaker's infatuation with the myth over the man. Perhaps its because Sean “Puff Daddy” Combs served as an executive producer, but the whole affair is so firm in its refusal to criticize Biggie's lifestyle that it comes off more like a fond eulogy than a meaningful portrait of one of East Coast rap's early superstars.

Tillman is a director far more content to document than analyze. The film plots Biggie's (newcomer Jamal Woolard) rise to fame and death at the hands of unidentified gunmen with a flurry of dramatic sequences shot by handheld cameras, punctuated by slick music-video-like sequences that only occasionally comment on the action. At its best, Notorious strings together a series of songs by its principal characters — Biggie, Lil' Kim, Faye Evans — and shows how their personal conflicts affect one another's music. At its worst, it shows the personal conflicts, which are steeped in melodrama, overreaching religious themes and petty, aw-shucks messages. Despite all its attempts, the film never takes hold of any one controlling theme, and all its blathering about “chasing the dream” and “the sky being the limit” feels awfully insincere.

Though it never succeeds in culling a greater meaning from Biggie's life, Notorious is perfectly watchable. Much of this is due to Woolard, who, besides being a physical and vocal dead ringer for the man he's impersonating, has enough charisma and screen presence to carry even the most syrupy material. Micheal Grady's cinematography also stands out — his deep shadows and raw esthetic perfectly complement the occasional found footage interspersed throughout (particularly effective is the handicam perspective of Biggie's Brooklyn-wide wake). Sadly, both Grady and Woolard's talents feel wasted, as Notorious amounts to little more than a series of disjointed snippets of a man's life, hewn together by schlocky dialogue, searching for a story to tell.