Straight Outta Compton, the new biopic about the pioneering hip-hop group N.W.A., caught me off guard. Hollywood has become very good at the production of trailers. In many instances, trailers are better than the features they advertise (see Steel, Man of). The trailer for Straight Outta Compton, however, left me cold. As a result, I walked into the theater not expecting much. I walked out blown away.
This is a film deeply concerned with violence, and with blowing up assumptions about which kinds of violence are worthy of attention (and moral indignation), and which are the consequence of a systemic oppression. From the opening sequence, when Easy-E (Eric Wright) walks into a house in order to collect what is owed him in a drug deal, there is a threat of violence. E finds himself at gunpoint during the course of his negotiation. The scene is tense. It is shot through with the possibility of a type of violence that we have been conditioned to accept, and a narrative--the smooth talking hustler whose quick wits allow him to escape violence--that is as engrained in Hollywood film making as any cliche. No sooner do we think that we have understood the stakes, than the LAPD drive a battering ram mounted on a tank through the door of the home. The way the ram throws a woman across the room like a bag of sand, and the dull thud she makes when she strikes the wall is one of the most powerful images of the film. Just like that the lie of "black on black" violence is thrown into the spotlight. The real violence in black life in the Compton of the film is always police violence. It is not subject to any community norm that is accessible to Dre, Ice Cube, or Easy-E, there is no reasoning with it, no discussion. Incidents of aggression and escalation on the part of the police escalate throughout the first and second acts of the film until the site of an officer is enough to make you feel a wave of revulsion and the desire for retributive action. The film positions "Fuck tha Police," perhaps the groups most iconic song, as the response. Watching them lead first small venues, and then full arenas in the song, as thousands of young black people answer in the call and response with their middle fingers raised was astonishing and affective.
It also wouldn't have been nearly as powerful had the film been less adept at deploying N.W.A.'s music throughout the film. The constant thrum of Dre's beats underlies everything that happens. The famous hooks are played over and over. It is the most effective use of music in a musical biopic that I can remember. It absolutely blew, for instance, the use of Ray Charles' music in Ray out of the water. That film, which has received substantially more critical acclaim than Straight Outta Compton has, can't hold a candle to this one. Some critics whose work I respect, like Grantland's Wesley Morris, have lamented the films that Straight Outta Compton could have been. Morris specifically focuses in on Charles Burnett's Killer of Sheep, a masterpiece of naturalistic film set in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. I love Killer of Sheep, but Morris is wrong to suggest that Compton's failure to live up the legacy of Burnett's film is a shortcoming. Burnett's film, while beautiful and powerful, has been largely unseen by any but academics and the few lucky students who have had it included on an Intro to Film syllabus. Compton, by contrast, dominated the weekend box office and looks primed to do so again this weekend. Even if the film has some shortcomings (and it does, but who cares), it is better than it be seen by millions than that it be better and be seen by only a few. The film acquits itself well, and if it speaks to the political moment more effectively at the cost of some aesthetic virtue, it is a trade off that is worth accepting.
A quick word on the performances. O'Shea Jackson Jr., who plays his father (Ice Cube), gives a star turn. This is the kind of performance that should make a career. Hopefully more work will come his way. More broadly, this film makes one long for more films featuring black performers. There are a few every year, but there need to be more. There are so many talented black actors and actresses. They need to be given a bigger and better platform.
Rating: 3.5/4
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