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.

Murder Was the Case: The Movie (1995) ** 1/2 (out of 4)This eighteen-minute video has Snoop Dogg being shot down by a trio of rivals but he makes a deal with the Devil to come back to life. There's really not too much plot for this promotional film but it's kind of funny watching this film today. I was in middle school when this was released and I still remember the various controversies that were going around about the language, the violence and of course the nudity. What's funny today is that all of these elements are incredibly light and there's really nothing offensive here. As it stands, there's no doubt that this short isn't a masterpiece but at the same time it's a mildly entertaining mixture of the rap culture and horror film. Snoop was a big fan of horror movies and you can see that influence here. He's certainly entertaining and the song selections are good enough.

"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.

Dr. Dre directed this violent, supposedly "autobiographical" film by rapper Snoop Doggy Dogg about his fictional death, but it's really more of an excuse to make a extended music video for the title song, intermixed with live performance and interview segments. Far better than the other Death Row video releases, this is still only for nostalgic die-hard fans of Snoop when he was a Doggy, as it contains some footage of interest. Murphy (of Chapelle's Show), who plays Snoop's killer, is Eddie's brother. DVD special edition contains extra music videos by Snoop from his Death Row era, as well as "Natural Born Killers". Excellent soundtrack, of no real relation to the movie, is also available.