BOYZ N THE HOOD
Straight Outta Compton
Review by Paul Preston
Full disclosure: when it comes to rap music, I go old school – Public Enemy, ICE-T, RUN D.M.C., Beastie Boys. Those last two are just fun, but ICE-T & especially P.E., had something to say, an agenda, and the raw, unbridled delivery of that message demanded attention. Also in the forefront of this ’80s/’90s movement was N.W.A., with their hit songs “Straight Outta Compton” and “F**k Tha Police” cutting right to the heart of life in the underprivileged parts of Los Angeles and spreading the message well beyond their neighborhood. Yeah, I was into them, too.
The film “Straight Outta Compton” covers N.W.A.’s rise to fame and subsequent thrashing in the gears of the music industry. Made up of DJ Dr. Dré, rapper and lyricist Ice Cube, producer and at-first reluctant rapper Eazy-E, MC Ren and DJ Yella, the group’s story starts out strong as they shoot to fame together, but as the group splinters, so does the film as each member’s separate storyline hampers the pace and splits focus. There’s a LOT to cover here!
The early years are full of humor and authenticity as big talents wallow in low-level positions such as DJ Yella & Dr. Dré working spinning soft dance music coupled with accounts of hood life that will eventually flavor the band’s music, like when a gangster brings threats and a gun aboard a school bus.
Early scenes of the recording of the group’s first album are filled with contagious camaraderie and live performance set pieces crackle with vitality, especially when the band performs “F**k Tha Police” in Detroit, despite threats from law enforcement. Today’s racial climate adds a real relevance and immediacy to all the scenes where the band clashes with the cops. There’s never a feeling of, “oh, yeah, sure, that’s how it happened”. That’s probably how it happened.
I always feel the need to say this about musical biopics that do it, but for good reason – despite Eazy-E coming from a crime world of drugs (and guns), there’s a distinct lack of drugs dragging the group down. After “Ray”, “Walk the Line” and other films, it’s become all-too predictable to see hardcore drug use destroy the music and musicians that I like so much, I went to see their story told in a film. But scenes of “Wolf of Wall Street”-esque excess don’t leave out the pot smoking and liquor swilling – N.W.A. is having no shortage of fun – but, again, that’s not what broke up the band.
What did bust up N.W.A. was the shady behavior of the music industry, coupled with greed and ego. Sadly, bypassing the drug use plotline for a seedy music industry plotline is welcome, but doesn’t help the second half match up to the energy of the first. All this despite Paul Giamatti as the group’s manager, whose name in the credits means something in the film will be good. Here, he’s one of many actors who are good. In “San Andreas”, thank god he showed up. O’Shea Jackson, Jr., Ice Cube’s real son, plays young Cube and his saunter and scowl are not surprisingly dead-on. What’s surprising is his ease in the role, but as a confident young writer, shrewd businessman and fiery on-stage performer. The actors you may not hear much of by name who deserve equal credit are Cory Hawkins as Dré and Jason Mitchell as E, who ride the roller coaster of their character’s careers genuinely.
I wish that coaster had a home stretch and finale that matched the liveliness of the beginning. I suppose dealing with the death of Eazy-E (he died of that ‘80s excess previously mentioned), isn’t gonna make for a vigorous ending. So it felt long, and that certainly doesn’t describe one of N.W.A.’s songs.
Directed by: F. Gary Gray
Release Date: August 14, 2015
Run Time: 147 Minutes
Country: USA
Rated: R
Distributor: Universal Studios
