Straight Outta Compton tells the story of pioneer hip-hop group NWA. It starts in 1986 in Compton, California, with Eric “Eazy-E” Wright (Jason Mitchell) getting tired of the risks involved with dealing drugs. Then one night, he’s approached by up-and-coming DJ Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins), who sells him on the possibility of bankrolling a record. Together with lyricist Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson Jr.), the three form the core of the NWA. And when Eazy-E catches the attention of manager Jerry Adler (Paul Giamatti), they start a journey revolutionizing the music industry. But success for the NWA also brings conflict and controversy, which will eventually set each of these three on their own paths through hip hop music.
The movie gets off to a raucous start as it introduces the main players who would form the legendary rap group. It cuts between the future members, laying out their place in life prior to coming together. But more than that, the opening establishes a world that doesn’t seem to want them to succeed. It is a world where a gang might stop the school on which Ice Cube is riding, where Eazy-E is running for his life at night, and Dre can’t find somebody to believe in his talent. The film paints a world where the African-American male just doesn’t have very many prospects.
The first half of the film presents NWA as an activist group, a militant set of rappers trying to change the world through their music, even as they indulge in the trappings of success. The film is actually most interesting as a political statement, as this script makes a pretty compelling case for the place the NWA has in American culture. The film plays the group as the voice of the voiceless, a release valve for all the conversations repressed through the guise of maintaining the peace.
The movie loses steam as it documents the breakup of the group. The involvement of the members in the production of the film seems to have kept the retelling pretty civil. It doesn’t invest enough in the animosity that grew between members. The movie is very light on specifics, the script hardly ever focusing long enough to really break down the various conflicts that arose between these people. It all becomes a blur of self-mythologizing, the movie dashing from beat to beat without really analyzing the consequences of any given action.
It still all ends up being fairly entertaining. This story really is quite compelling, and there are good bursts of really strong material even in the weaker second half. F. Gary Gray doesn’t leave much of a mark as a filmmaker, but there are a few scenes that properly reflect the operatic circumstances in which these rappers existed. The three lead actors do fair impressions of the real life members of the NWA. Jason Mitchell in particular oozes the right type of charisma that made Eazy-E such a compelling figure. O’Shea Jackson Jr. doesn’t really have the presence of his father, but his mannerisms are on point. Also helping is the presence of Paul Giamatti, who somehow manages to wring some sympathy for one of the slimiest figures ever committed to screen.
Straight Outta Compton has really amazing material, but it is in the end a fairly standard biopic. Like many biopics, it tries to cover too much ground between too many characters, and it struggles to turn all these major life events into a structured narrative. Having said that, it is still a lot more entertainment than your standard musical biopic. It might have benefitted from a tighter focus, perhaps drilling in deeper into the life of just one of these members. But as it is, this movie tells a story that’s worth telling. And that might be enough.
My Rating:
