Review of Straight Outta Compton (2015) by Kyle W — 22 Nov 2015

F. Gary Gray's incredibly confident film account of the rise and fall of N.W.A. begins with a visceral punch, sucking us into a drug-deal in a Compton crack-house broken up by the L.A.P.D. wielding a battering ram.

The alarming violence of that first scene is necessary for what comes next; Compton isn't just a bad area, it's a war zone with ever-escalating tensions on both sides. From the chaos, prejudice, and anger, five young men (including our three protagonists - Dr.

Dre, Ice Cube, and Eric "Easy-E" Wright) emerge with passionate, brutal, rebellious music giving voice to those being silenced. The energy and anarchic power is so strong in the first half of the film, the performances so passionate (particularly Jason Mitchell as E), that one could almost call it a day after the bombshell centerpiece performance of "Fuck the Police.

" Alas, there's more - 90 minutes more, at that - and while Gray rocks the rise section, he doesn't quite know what to do with the fall, and the film devolves into a lot of similarly-staged, paced, and filmed scenes about contract logistics.

There is an interesting question being asked - what happens when youths whom society has so failed come into positions of power and don't know how to resolve differences without violence - but that all gets buried under a Wikipedia-entry-style denouement which doesn't seem to know what's integral to this story and what would be better in a documentary, finally transfiguring into an AIDs "Movie of the Week.

" Still, there is power here, and the film is well-worth viewing for the incredible power of its first hour alone and an incredible reminder that we need more movies like this, from these voices that so often don't get the limelight.