A compact and compressed Biggie

Hollywood commemorates the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday with the Biggie Smalls bio "Notorious," and there's an odd couple for you.

It's hard, certainly, to picture Dr. King tapping his toe to "The Ten Commandments of Crack" or "Gimme the Loot."

And yet there is an unexpected moral dimension in "Notorious," which skims the basics of B.I.G.'s well-chronicled career as a rapper, while concentrating on his less-celebrated maturation as father and husband.

This may come as a surprise (and an irritant) to hardcore fans of Notorious B.I.G., but not to those familiar with the work of director George Tillman Jr., producer of the "Barbershop" movies and television series, who favors strong family themes.

Biggie is 13 as the movie begins, and still known as Christopher Wallace (he's played by Wallace's own son), a Brooklyn kid raised by his mom (Angela Bassett) and drawn to the easy money of street-corner dealing.

This ends predictably with Biggie in jail facing a weapons charge. He's sprung when a pal takes the rap so that Biggie can rap - Smalls shows real talent in street-corner showdowns and impromptu basement performances (nicely staged), and his friends push him to make a career of it.

Sean Combs is executive producer of "Notorious" and coincidentally gets most of the credit here for discovering, signing and promoting Smalls (played engagingly as an adult by X-large rapper Jamal "Gravy" Woolard).

In truth, Source magazine had already touted Smalls' basement mixtapes in its "Unsigned Hype" column, leading to gigs with Mary J. Blige and other artists.

Facts are bound to be squeezed a little. The movie is relatively compact, and there's a lot of compression.

"Notorious" races though Small's relationships with the teen mother of his first child, then Lil' Kim (Naturi Naughton), then Faith Evans (Antonique Smith), then several hundred groupies. (Sexually frank, the movie earns its R rating.)

It posits that Biggie was good friends with Tupac Shakur (Anthony Mackie) before an unsolved shooting left Shakur wounded and caused a rift that blew up into the East Coast/West Coast feud that claimed the lives of both men.

"Notorious" does not speculate on the unsolved crimes and sees no conspiracies, only a senseless waste of talent. And in Wallace's case, a tragic end to a young man (just 24) who was starting to come to terms with his duties as a father and husband.

Wallace's estate is controlled by his mother, who supervised the script and attended every day of shooting to make sure "Notorious" gave full voice to what she saw as her son's personal growth.

Some directors may have chafed at this but probably not Tillman, whose movies tend to judge a man by the way he meets his responsibilities, rather than the way he wears his bling.

This may leave some Biggie devotees feeling preached to and others looking for deeper exploration of his flow.

"Notorious" also could have spent more time on Smalls' style, influences and musicality - next to "Cadillac Records" and "Ray," it feels thin in that department. *

Produced by Voletta Wallace, Wayne Barrow, Mark P*tts, Robert Te*tel and Tr*sh Hofmann, d*rected by George T*llman Jr., wr*tten by Regg*e Rock Bythewood and Cheo Hodar* Coker, mus*c by Danny Elfman, d*str*buted by Fox Searchl*ght P*ctures.