Review: Straight Outta Compton

Parental Advisry
“You’re now about to witness the strength of street knowledge”
When I heard that a movie about the seminal rap group NWA was on the way I felt a combination of excitement and unease. Excitement because I’d been a fan of the group since the early 90’s and knew there was cinematic potential in their story. Unease because many musical bio-pics tend to be uneven and formulaic. The two most recent ones, the Clint Eastwood directed Four Seasons tribute Jersey Boys and the James Brown bio-pic Get On Up both fell into that category. Even the better ones (Walk The Line) have their flaws.


Rappers and rap groups haven’t really fallen into the bio-pic spotlight that much. The 2009 attempt at one of the Notorious B.I.G was mediocre. 8 Mile, while quite good, was less a bio-pic than a fictionalized take on Eminem’s pre-stardom days. Get Rich Or Die Tryin’, based on Eminem’s label-mate 50 Cent’s pre-stardom days and also heavily fictionalized, was pretty bad. So in some ways, Straight Outta Compton was going to be the movie to prove that hip-hop bio-pics can work as well as one of jazz, classical, country, rock and soul musicians.
So does it succeed? For the most part yes.
First off, the producers picked the right director to helm this movie. When I heard that an NWA film was in the works, I immediately figured there were two great choices for the director: The Hughes Brothers (Menace II Society, Dead Presidents, From Hell, The Book Of Eli) or F Gary Gray. Gray, who got the job, started out directing hip-hop and R&B videos. Below are some samples of his work:


Gray made his feature directorial debut with the 1995 stoner comedy Friday which starred Ice Cube. A year later he gave us the inner city bank robbery film Set It Off. Both films have become cult classics of sorts. From those, he graduated to more mainstream territory with the 1998 thriller The Negotiator. But in the years since, aside from his 2003 remake of The Italian Job, he seemed to have lost his way, helming a weak Elmore Leonard adaptation (Be Cool) and a lesser action movie (A Man Apart). Straight Outta Compton finds him back on track.
Album Cover
The film follows the basic musical bio-pic formula. But does it in a way that makes it interesting to watch. It shows the circumstances of life in the inner city of Compton: the crime, drugs and police brutality. It shows how this set the stage for the rise of gangsta rap.
From there it traces how NWA formed, the success they experienced and the ensuing controversy. A lot of the major points are touched on: the release of the Straight Outta Compton album and the results thereof.
The movie covers a 9-year time span (1986-1995) and covers a lot of territory.  It shows Ice Cube leaving after becoming dissatisfied with financial arrangements. It shows the dissing war that erupted between Cube and his former band mates after they ripped him on their 1991 follow-up album Niggaz4life and he fired back with the brutal “No Vaseline” on his album Death Certificate. It shows Dr. Dre starting to share the same suspicions about finances that Cube had and him leaving as well, effectively ending NWA as a group. It shows his success on his own with the 1992 classic album The Chronic as well as his founding of Death Row records.
Cast Picture
O’Shea Jackson Jr plays Ice Cube and the resemblance to his real life father is striking. Jason Mitchell plays Eazy-E and brings him fully to life. It’s easy to think that you might be watching the real Eazy, that he didn’t die from AIDS in March of 1995. Corey Hawkins doesn’t resemble the real life Dr. Dre that closely. But he’s good enough that we can overlook that. Paul Giamatti is his usual dependable self as Jerry Heller, the manager who was later discovered to be guilty of some rather unscrupulous business practices which would lead to the end of NWA as a group.
Unfortunately, Straight Outta Compton is far from flawless. First off, MC Ren and DJ Yella are relegated to more or less being bit players. While it could be argued that they weren’t as successful or well-known as Cube, Dre or Eazy, they were still a part of the group and should have had more screen time.
More significantly, this movie falls victim to whitewashing in regards to the issue of misogyny. From the beginning, NWA’s music was considered to contain lyrics that were demeaning to women and this is only hinted at in spots. There’s a reason why the songwriting got even worse in that regard after Cube left and took the protest/social commentary element with him (the second half of the aforementioned Niggaz4life album is a rancid vile nihilistic mess). Also totally omitted from the movie is Dre’s 1991 brutal beating of rap video show host Dee Barnes.
Even with these flaws, I’d say that this is the best music bio-pic I’ve seen since Walk The Line 10 years ago. It tells its story well, touches on issues that are still relevant today and may very well elevate F Gary Gray to the ranks of best directors working today.
I’ll end this review with the title song from the album from which this film takes its name. Explicit language contained.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

0 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
lebeau
Admin
8 years ago

Good review, Jeff. It sort of functions as a mini WTHH on F Gary Gray. As someone who could not name the members of NWA if my life depended on it, Straight Outta Compton was off of my radar. I’m familiar with the title song through osmosis. But I wasn’t familiar with any of the history or records you talked about in your summary. The movie has gotten some solid reviews so I plan to check it out someday when the opportunity presents itself. But I’m in no hurry to do so. I’m glad you referenced the controversy over misogyny.… Read more »

lebeau
Admin
8 years ago

Good review; I’m not much of a Hip-Hop guy (although I did own Eazy-E’s album “Eazy-Duz-It” in the mid 1990’s), but I’ll check this film out someday.

RB
RB
8 years ago

Enjoyable review. There’s an intersection of music and culture that, I’m not likely to seek out but is a part of the fabric of society, and thus deserves to be examined.

Craig Hansen
Craig Hansen
8 years ago

Terrific write-up Jeff. I just saw Straight Outta Compton and thought it was excellent. The film was more than just the history of a band, it was about the environment that they grew up in, the environment that created NWA, so the film has some real depth to it. It’s funny in places, touching in others. I would say it’s one of the best films I’ve seen so far this year. I was impressed with F. Gary Gray’s direction of the film, along with the superb performances from the cast. Gray seemed the perfect choice as director here, having previously… Read more »

0
Would love your thoughts, please comment.x
()
x