The trailer for 50 Cent's forthcoming film, 'Things Fall Apart,' in which he plays a college football player who's struck with cancer, has appeared online.

Recently shown at the Miami Film Festival, this is the film where the rapper lost a lot of weight to be in character.

Directed by and also starring Mario Van Peeples, who plays Jackson's father, the film also features Ray Liotta as the doctor aiding him during his treatment process. The cast also includes Lynn Whitfield as Jackson's mother, Tracey Heggins, Elizabeth Rodriguez, Steve Eastin, Ambyr Childers and Cedric Sanders.

The rapper/actor undergoes an astonishing physical transformation as Deon Barnes, a promising Michigan football running back who dreams of one day getting drafted by the Miami Dolphins. A well-liked young man whose winning disposition makes him a hit with just about everybody (especially the girls), Deon has a line on a Heisman Trophy until he one day collapses in the locker room following a big win. The diagnosis, delivered by his doctor (played by Liotta), is cancer, and Deon's blessed life comes crashing down around him as he undergoes chemotherapy, losing his hair and over 60 lbs. of muscle, his hair falling out, leaving him an emaciated shadow of his former self.

Based on the true story of a close friend, 50 Cent also cowrote and coproduced this moving film, and provides many of the bracing original songs that make up its soundtrack. Like John Lee Hancock's 'The Blind Side,' football here becomes a vehicle for familial expressions of love, resentment and ultimate reconciliation.

After 50 Cent's last two films, 'Gun' and 'Caught in the Crossfire,' were released straight-to-DVD, director Van Peebles feels that this film represents a major change for the actor/rapper and spoke to Blackvoices.com exclusively about casting him in his film.

"'Things Fall Apart' is the first movie where 50 doesn't carry a gun, and he's really stepping out of the box of what we know him as. He really took the challenge well. Initially I wanted to do 'Things Fall Apart' as an actor, then they got me in there. I kinda felt like Al Pacino, "They keep pulling me back!' "