Myron Clemons
A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.
Ella-May O'Brien
Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
Deanna
There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.
Skyler
Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.
jmosser-99099
Whether you call this a short film or a long music video, it utterly fails on both fronts. You would think with such creative talented people involved that they could have churned out something better than this. 1st year film students and amateur youtubers could have done much better. This lacks both style and substance and makes you wonder why they bothered to make or release this in the first place. This served as nothing more than a vehicle for the platinum selling soundtrack, which was quite good, however only 4 songs that appear on the soundtrack actually appear on the film, and the most recognizable title track was a re-release from Snoop's solo album. Even as a big fan of Death Row's music, I thought this film was terrible. You would think they might have wanted to give a visual window into the style and creativity that fueled some of the best rap music of the 90's, but instead you get 16 minutes of boring unmitigated garbage. Even looking back at this over 20 years later, this film lacks any appeal whatsoever even for nostalgic purposes. It doesn't even showcase any of the other rappers who were on the label at the time. Just Snoop and a bunch of D level actors, if they can even be called that. This film was poorly conceived and poorly executed. I understand the idea of them wanting to branch out into film, but if this was the best they could do they shouldve just shelved the whole idea. This video is freely available on youtube. I don't think anyone would even want to try to claim the copyright on this crap. But even freely available, this isn't even worth 16 minutes of your time. Even if you are the biggest Snoop fan I would say skip this and forget that it ever existed. Home movies are more interesting.
Horst in Translation (filmreviews@web.de)
"Murder Was the Case: The Movie" is a 16-minute movie and still it has no less than 4 writers and 4 directors including Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg. This film was made 20 years ago and both were still fairly early in their careers, yet already acclaimed artists. I think the film's main problem is that it is so stereotypical. It is exactly what you would expect from a hip hop video: naked women, black gangstas and some rap music here and there. Oh and of course the great (un)spectacular shooting scene. Also it is probably not a coincidence that everybody in this film is black except the actor who portrays the Devil and who is white. So yeah, if you really love hip hop, the music and the culture, you may have a solid time watching this, but for everybody else it's not a memorable film in my opinion.
gangstahippie
Rated NR(would be Rated R for Strong Violence,Language,Drug Use and Brief Nudity) Murder Was The Case is basically an extended music video/short film for the snoop dogg song of the same name.Im not really a big fan of Snoop Dogg though I like some of his songs.I sort of liked this song and I found the movie on youtube, so I watched it.Its only 18min long and if you get the DVD, the other 30min is of concert footage.Anyway, the film was nothing special.The plot is sort of hard to follow and the acting is alright I guess.From what I picked up from the plot, Snoop Dogg gets a girl pregnant.The girl's boyfriend then looks for snoop and kills him.While he's in the hospital, Snoop sells his soul to the devil, becomes rich but then Satan takes him back to the night he got shot and snoop gets arrested and stays in jail.Its worth checking out for fans of Snoop Dogg but don't expect an excellent film.Its a decent short.
stargirlrk
I bought the DVD to this movie, and although it had many ofSnoop Dogg's music videos and concert footage, the actual shortfilm itself was pretty bad. It generally centered around a shortgunbattle scene in front of a liquor store and it was pretty bad. Itwas unrealistic and wasnt very exciting at all. But thats it. Dontbother renting or buying this movie. The regular version includesthe 18-minute short film combined with 36 minutes more ofconcert and other footage for a total film length of 54 minutes. Butthis movie was bad. Even if you consider watching it at a friend'shouse, try to avoid this turkey and do something better with yourtime. AVOID THIS FILM