Straight Outta Compton
In 1987, five young men, using brutally honest rhymes and hardcore beats, put their frustration and anger about life in the most dangerous place in America into the most powerful weapon they had: their music. Taking us back to where it all began, Straight Outta Compton tells the true story of how these cultural rebels—armed only with their lyrics, swagger, bravado and raw talent—stood up to the authorities that meant to keep them down and formed the world’s most dangerous group, N.W.A. And as they spoke the truth that no one had before and exposed life in the hood, their voice ignited a social revolution that is still reverberating today.
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- Cast：
- O'Shea Jackson Jr. , Corey Hawkins , Jason Mitchell , Neil Brown Jr. , Aldis Hodge , Marlon Yates Jr. , R. Marcos Taylor
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Reviews
Redundant and unnecessary.
Good concept, poorly executed.
Don't listen to the negative reviews
The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful
A must watch for any rap/hip hop fan. Absolutely fantastic portrayals of the core five members of the band.
In F. Gary Gray's docudrama biopic, Straight Outta Compton, it tell's the story how six men from Compton, California (Eazy-E (singer), Ice Cube (songwriter, singer), Dr.Dre (DJ), DJ Yella (backup vocals), MC Ren (backup vocals), and The D.O.C. (backup vocals)) rose to fame their debuting album Straight Outta Compton by their band N.W.A. previously they all worked together on the hit- single Boyz In Da Hood by Eazy- E. After Boyz In Da Hood blow up, Eazy-E met with music manager Jerry Heller who was played by Paul Giamatti who I think did a great job playing the manager. Ice Cube's son O'Shea Jackson Jr. play's his father in the movie and does a good job at it acting like his old man and capturing his charm, eventually the manager Jerry doesn't pay Ice Cube the money he deserves and the legal representation to sign a record contract. So Cube leaves the group and start's his own music label and becomes a film actor starring in Boyz N the Hood and also becoming a film writer for the 1995 movie Friday and the film show's both these event's. Before Ice Cube splits the group their controversial song f the police show's the crew getting arrested and fighting for their freedom of speech. Leading to other rapper's basing their material to what N.W.A. did. Dr. Dre would leave and would discover Snoop Dogg, Tupac, 50 Cent, and Eminem which I personally loved how they introduced them. N.W.A. would now just be Eazy-E, MC Ren, and DJ Yella, Eazy-E now finally realizes that Jerry was screwing him over from the beginning and Dre and Cube were trying to tell him but he didn't listen, he tries to reunite N.W.A. without Jerry being involved which I think is pretty cool, he reconciles with Ice Cube and Dr. Dre but find's out he has HIV/AIDS dying shortly after he's diagnosed causing the group to grieve, but people will always remember him, finally Dr. Dre leaves Death Row Records because Suge Knight wasn't fair to him and starts his own label Aftermath which becomes very successful. The music for the movie was perfect, what wasn't was they never explained what happened to Jerry Heller after he was fired by Eazy-E. N.W.A. led a movement of modern day rap to let it be what it is, N.W.A. wasn't afraid to have changes in music which is what's great about the group.
Yes, the film is overlong but generally entertaining. Would have given it 7* but knocked off a star for the flagrant rewriting of history to favour the producers (Dr.Dre, Ice Cube and Tomica) Performances are generally good (esp. Ice Cube's son) Better editing and more honest portrayal of facts would have improved the film. Btw ignore the 1* reviews - don't watch a film about gangsta rap if it offends you so much!!
All in all, the movie isn't so bad... Especially considering how awful some biopics are. However, I don't believe the film is very accurate. Now, before you go like "What?! the films' producers are two of the main characters, of course it's damn accurate!" to which I'll say: That exactly is the problem..." Besides not including a pivotal member in the formation and release of NWA's first record and pretending he never existed (I'm referring to Arabian Prince here), the movie focuses too much on Dre and Ice Cube, since they're the two members that achieved the most fame as solo artists, and Eazy E of course, since 1- He's deceased and it's out of respect for his legacy, 2- His - controversial and not really liked- widow serves as a producer for the film also. The film really takes away the importance of DJ Yella and MC Ren and minimizes their roles in NWA to focus on Dre and Ice Cube probably because it was assumed that it'll attract the audience more as to this day these are two huge names in the hip hop world whilst DJ yella and MC Ren -despite being real OGs- aren't as known to the mainstream audiences. So, overlooking the fact that history is re-written, the cast does live up o the expectation, especially Ice Cube's son: He does a wonderful job portraying his father, so does Paul GIamatti as Jerry Heller. Some scenes are a little cliché (Ice cube listening to NWA dissing him and hopping in the studio to spit "No Vaseline" and NAW in turn listening to it sitting in Heller's office arguing if Ice Cube knows what anti-semitism is... -,-' ) Conclusion: it's worth a watch but to get the real NWA story and beefs, it's best to do some reading from around the web.
