Straight outta Compton and straight into the Oscar buzz. It’s early, and this movie will be forgotten by Halloween (just like most of the great films released in the first eight or nine months of each year). Still, for now, this movie is hot with audiences (over $100 million grossed in its first eight days) and critics (89% fresh on Rotten Tomatoes), like just about any other movie of the year. As I will explain in my review below, Straight Outta Compton didn’t do anything (besides the music itself) that was amazing on its own, but it did do just about everything well. I wouldn’t call it the surprise hit of the year, as many other movies flew further under the radar (Ex Machina and The Gift are the two that come to mind for me). Still, it was a movie that could be very good or very bad, depending on the acting, which parts of the story would be told, and, most importantly, the direction. I’ll talk more about F. Gary Gray (The Negotiator, The Italian Job) later in the review, but long story short, he nailed it. Straight Outta Compton was his most challenging and impressive work to date. While I think it’s an extremely long shot based on the history of the Academy and its voting, his name could still be swirling around as a dark horse for Best Director come December.

I don’t know how the film’s opening scene relates to the rest of the movie, but I haven’t seen a more captivating opening scene yet this year. The first scene sets the film’s tone, but some audience members might wonder what they have gotten themselves into. I’ll be honest. I knew hardly anything about the N.W.A. before my viewing. I knew they were a rap group in the ’80s and ’90s. I knew about Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, but I did not know how these guys got their start. I honestly did not realize that they were even associated with each other. My exposure to both men came after they were well-established, and while I do not listen to rap music, I appreciate any artist’s staying power. Both are legends in the industry. I know Ice Cube (Friday, Boyz N the Hood) more through his acting than I do his music. My first exposure to the man was when he starred in one of my favorite movies of all time (Trespass) with Bill Paxton, Ice-T, and William Sadler. It’s ironic that when I saw this 1992 movie, I hadn’t heard of the men. I believe I saw movies like Boyz N the Hood, Aliens, and Next of Kin after Trespass (I saw Trespass in the theater with my grandmother!).

For me, the coolest part of the movie was the story. As mentioned, I knew nothing about the N.W.A. or the origins of Ice Cube or Dr. Dre. And to be perfectly honest, I first learned about Easy-E from this movie. I did not listen to N.W.A.  growing up. Rap has never been my thing, so his heartbreaking story never crossed my radar. I did research before writing this review, and, for the most part, the movie portrayed a true story, but specific parts were omitted. I know a few people have expressed disappointment that Dr. Dre’s violence against women was not accurately portrayed and that, maybe, he came across looking like a better guy in this movie than he actually was. If this was a big part of who Dr. Dre was as a teenager and someone in his early twenties, then, yes, it should have been shown in this film. I won’t, by any means, defend the omission, but I will say this movie did something I didn’t think it could.

Straight Outta Compton successfully told the story of three different people over many years in under 150 minutes. That is a feat difficult to achieve, even for the most accomplished directors, let alone one who is still relatively new to the scene. There are now five members of N.W.A., and the story aims to showcase all five. In this sense, the movie underachieved. I guess if you want to tell the whole story, you have to feature all five members, but I genuinely feel like D.J. Yella (Neil Brown Jr. – Out of Time, Battle: Los Angeles) and MC Ren (Aldis Hodge – A Good Day to Die Hard, The East) were both very underdeveloped. Yes, they were the group’s lesser-known members, but I confused them with some of the movie’s lesser-known characters. I felt like I was being introduced to too many characters, and while Brown did try to space out their stories as best as he could, he couldn’t do it for all five. So I’ll focus on the three most prominent group members in my review.

Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins – Non-Stop, Iron Man 3), Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson Jr. – Ice Cube’s actual son), and Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell – Contraband, Dragon Eyes) are the story, and you get to know the origins of each of these three men very, very well. We understand that Eazy-E is considered the group’s leading talent because he is the lead rapper on most songs. Ice Cube writes a ton of the lyrics but gets less respect for it. And the idea of turntable mixing was a relatively new phenomenon at the time, so Dr. Dre probably didn’t receive the recognition at the start of his career that he might have received even a decade later. But N.W.A. itself was a pioneer in the industry. Dr. Dre was a pioneer as well. And the fact that he and Ice Cube are household names 20 years later says a lot.

There was enough backstory with how police officers treated the five guys to show where their genuine anger stemmed. And, to their credit, for the most part, they were able to harness this rage and put it towards their music. They weren’t the first group to go against authority, but they might have been the first to show absolutely no restraint. Jerry (Paul Giamatti – The Holdovers, Win-Win) signs on to be the group’s manager, but it’s hard to get an accurate read on him. His intentions seem good, and he seems to know his job, but something doesn’t quite meet the eye. It’s not just the audience who notices this; one or two other characters do, too.

Throughout the movie, we see the band’s successes, their breakup, and their careers. We see how they handle their fame and fortune, and their setbacks. Some rise. Some fall. And we get to see it all in a way that is easy to follow and makes us feel compassion for each of its leads. Biopics can be hit or miss. There are a lot of terrible ones out there. Straight Outta Compton is not one of them. This is a great movie that keeps you engaged throughout. It doesn’t matter whether you know the story or not. I encourage everyone aged 25 to 50 to see this film.

Plot 9/10
Character Development 9/10 (Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre…absolutely)
Character Chemistry 9/10 (they loved each other…they grew out of love for each other…but nothing felt surprising or out of form)
Acting 9.5/10 (a bunch of relative no-names made the most of their opportunities)
Screenplay 9.5/10
Directing  8.5/10 (truly a great effort by Gray…my only real criticism was the development of D.J. Yella and Mc Ren)
Cinematography 8/10 (I liked the late 80’s California…the Tower Records brought back some memories. It was really dark and almost grainy at times, though)
Sound 10/10 (Duh!)
Hook and Reel 9.5/10 (the most intense opening scene at the movies so far this year)
Universal Relevance 9.5/10
91.5%

A-

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