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'Gridlock'd': Tupac Shakur's Lasting Image

Before being shot to death in Las Vegas last year, Tupac Shakur had shown he possessed a riveting screen presence. Nobody who saw him in "Juice" or "Poetic Justice" would deny that.

Shakur reappears today in two films, one that shows what potential his life held, and one that tries to cash in on the tragedy that struck him down.

"Gridlock'd," by far the better of the two, opens today at area theaters. Finished just two months before Shakur's death, it succeeds precisely because it plays to his acting skills rather than trading on his gangsta-rap reputation. The second, "Bullet," is a straight-to-video movie that crassly overstates Shakur's presence in its advertising and promotional materials. Where the first film is clearly a vehicle for Shakur and actor Tim Roth, the latter is . . . gulp . . . a Mickey Rourke showcase. Consider yourself warned.

Written and directed by Vondie Curtis Hall, "Gridlock'd" follows a bad day in the lives of Stretch (Roth), Spoon (Shakur) and Cookie (Thandie Newton), who make up a spoken-word jazz trio in Detroit. Two of the three are hapless junkies and the third, Cookie, almost winds up in the morgue when she overdoses on New Year's Eve. When Stretch and Spoon finally deposit her at a hospital, they make a guilt-ridden New Year's resolution to get into rehab and kick their habits.

What they don't know is that their bad day is about to get worse. They go up against an indifferent, sometimes hostile welfare bureaucracy, and evade psycho drug dealers they've inadvertently ripped off and cops who mistake them for cold-blooded killers. The sudden impulse to reform is quickly replaced by the survival instinct.

Though the end suggests a sort of Keystone Krooks, "Gridlock'd" is closer to last year's "Trainspotting" in capturing the junkie life, particularly at the stage where the junkie's aim is no longer to get high but simply to keep from getting sick. First-time director Hall (Mercutio in "William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet" and Dennis Hancock in "Chicago Hope") captures the perpetual regret that nonetheless succumbs to desire. He also reflects the reckless machismo and indifference that make rehab itself a pipe dream.

Whether Spoon and Stretch are shooting up next to the body of a friend or relieving themselves in a cramped bathroom before a performance, it's clear that heroin has destroyed their morality, ambition, energy and humanity. And it's clear that no one cares, not even Spoon and Stretch themselves.

In his last performance, Shakur is thankfully free of the gangsta image. His Spoon is the more thoughtful and sensitive of this pair, the one more likely to kick the habit. Shakur is again a major screen presence. If he had lived, perhaps film would have allowed him to evade the gangsta rap typecasting forced on him by the music industry.

The wiry, wily Roth looks the part of the reprobate junkie and plays well against Shakur's solidity. Even in flashbacks, the beautiful Newton isn't really given much to do, though the filmmakers find two excuses for her to disrobe. Still, Hall draws solid performances from everyone and there is a painful humor to Spoon and Stretch's quixotic quest for rehab.

Gridlock'd is rated R and contains profanity, drug use, nudity and violence.