Ever since 50 Cent’s horrific weight-loss photos from the set of Things Fall Apart — the latest in a seemingly never-ending string of comically low-budget movies from the former rapper — first surfaced, we knew we were in for something special. How special, though, wasn’t made clear until this morning, when the movie’s official trailer was released. Featuring a kind-eyed Ray Liotta, a super-locked-in Mario Van Peebles, and, of course, Curtis “50 Cent” Jackson as a promising college football player struggling with a debilitating disease, it is, truly, a quiet masterpiece of unintentional comedy. Our five favorite things:
1. It really sounds like 50 couldn’t fit the fee for the regular-trailer voice-over guy in the budget, so had to settle for the guy who does the novelty-trailer voice-overs. That makes the line “Deion Barnes had it all … until life got in the way” roughly 10,000 times more awesome than it otherwise would have been.
2. It’s obviously a stretch for 50, at 35 years of age, to be playing a college kid. But that souvenir-shop-rasta-hat-quality wig? It just shaves the years off.
3. At one point, to show us that he’s getting sick, 50 has to take a tumble onto a locker-room bench. What an actor!
4. According to our friend the novelty voice-over trailer guy, this is “Curtis ‘50 Cent’ Jackson … in the most critically acclaimed role … of his career.” There are no quotes from critics provided. You’re just going to have to take novelty voice-over trailer guy’s word on this one, okay?
5. At the very end, scarily skinny 50 is in a nifty white shirt and tie combo, sprinting while crying. Then he puts his hands in the air in a bit of personal triumph, and the image freezes. It’s … it’s incredible.
