Straight Outta Compton

I can still remember way back when N.W.A first hit the scene and the subsequent controversy that followed in reaction to their lyrics. I remember when the parental advisory labels started showing up on CDs, in a large part due to N.W.A's albums. I remember people crying out about how their music glamorized gang life and rallied against law enforcement. The thing is though, most of the media missed the point of their lyrics. It wasn't a glamorization of anything, but an angry cry against a reality they grew up with, gang violence and discrimination from the Police. Straight Outta Compton does a good job capturing it while somehow dodging being a straight up vanity project, despite being produced by group members Ice Cube and Dr. Dre. 

As the film opens with the various members of N.W.A living in Compton, CA start to come together, with Dre (played Corey Hawkins) winding up staying with Ice Cube (played by Cube's own son, O'Shea Jackson, Jr.), having left home after a fight with his mother. Dre wants to keep working as a DJ, seeing that as his future while his mother wants him to get a practical job and earn a living to provide for his daughter and girlfriend. However, after combining Cube's rhymes with Dre's beats they start to come across something, trying it out in front of a crowd. The crowd eats it up even if the club owner is less than thrilled, preferring Dre spin records to get his customers in a romantic mood rather than riled up. They decide to take a chance and make a record, turning to their friend Eazy-E (played by Jason Mitchell) to help front the cash to get a record made as well as rap on the record. This leads to an amusing bit where Cube and Dre try to help Eazy-E find his beat. From this comes the formation of N.W.A, which stands for Niggas with Attitudes, which also includes MC Ren (played by Aldis Hodge) and DJ Yella (played by Neil Brown, Jr.). 

Their first single starts gaining some attention from frequent airplay on the radio stations and ultimately attracts the attention of local manager Jerry Heller (played by Paul Giamatti), who eventually is able to get the group signed to a record contract. From there, the fame and controversy of their performances come about. We see the inception of perhaps their most controversial song, "Fuck the Police," coming about from being harassed by cops while they were hanging out in front of their recording studio. There's also the lengthy tour, including damn near inciting a riot in Detroit while playing "Fuck the Police" after being explicitly told not to by the Detroit police department (to be fair, I would've done it too). There's also the contract disputes that ultimately resulted in Cube leaving the group, the parting of ways of friends and the eventual downfall of Eazy-E to AIDS.     

Straight Outta Compton is certainly riveting viewing for much of it's runtime, tracing the rise of these guys from the ghetto of South Central Los Angeles to the heights of super stardom. The film captures a moment in time quite well, showing what life was like for these guys existing in that environment in a way that is unfortunately just as relevant today. The most memorable music that came from them was in direct response to the gang culture, the violence and the repeated harassment, discrimination and humiliation they received from the LAPD. Director F Gary Gray and screenwriters Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff capture that quite well. The film is extraordinarily well cast, with O'Shea Jackson Jr. leading the group, capturing his father perfectly. Corey Hawkins and Jason Mitchell are equally memorable in their turns as Dr. Dre and Eazy-E as well. Paul Giamatti does well here too, giving a good performance that is quickly becoming a specialty of his with this being his third time playing a band manager or agent in the past couple years. 

While the movie does gloss over some of the worse things these guys did over their time, there are enough warts being shown that while I can't give it a pass, I can understand it. Both Dr. Dre and Ice Cube are still working in the business and I can understand them wanting to skip over certain things for the sake of the movie as a whole as well as their respective careers. Still, there are cringeworthy moments such as Cube trashing his manager's office with a baseball bat or Dr. Dre speeding off in his Ferrari and leading a police chase that are included show these guys weren't exactly saints. Although the movie makes this clear from the beginning. Part of the reason Dre and Cube go to Eazy-E for money to make the first record is because they know he's a drug dealer and has the cash. Of course, the film suffers from an overwhelming sense of misogyny, something that the group's recordings were frequently criticized for and the movie also carries the same feelings. It does get better as the film goes on and the various members start getting married, but it still lacks for any genuine well-drawn female characters, aside from maybe Dre's Mom, but she's not around for long. It's one of the very few issues I had with the film as a whole. If it had just taken a little while longer to establish the various spouses a little more, it would've made a big difference. And I know the movie isn't about them and does remain focused on Dr. Dre, Ice Cube and Eazy-E, but it's just a nitpick of mine.

Still, in a summer jam packed with great films, Straight Outta Compton, is superior entertainment focusing on a group of young men who through the power of music and words shook the world. It's still being heard, and needs to be heard, today.