Never Die Alone (2004)

By CinemaSerf

Journalist "Paul" (David Arquette) rushes recently shot "King David" (DMX) to hospital. Unable to save this man he had previously never met, he does find himself in possession of his car - and contained therein are some audio tapes delivering a retrospective of the deceased man's life as a small time drug dealer. This story offers us nothing at all new, indeed the DMX character is pretty odious from the get-go - especially when he decides to get his independently minded girlfriend hooked on heroin because she won't move in with him. It is gritty; there is a distinct plausibility about the way he lived his life; thoughtless and selfish, ruthless and devious. In parallel, we also feature a storyline about "Michael" (a competent Michael Ealy) who is making sure he avenges the killing even though he is a much more decent individual. Plenty of musicians have tried to cross to cinema and most can't hack it. Despite a reasonable effort with some dialogue that is nowhere near as banal as I'd expected, DMX relies too much on his own persona and charisma - of which he has plenty - rather than trying to imbue anything into his character, about whom I really couldn't have cared less. His own narration is sometimes quite withy and observational, but despite the frequency realistic drug abuse scenes, this still all quite well paced, but completely forgettable stuff.