Review: Straight Outta Compton

“Straight Outta Compton” explodes with a blank screen, helicopter blades and media chatter. We could be starting another zombie apocalypse or alternatively listening to a multi-layered, cinematic section of an NWA or Ice Cube track. The living dead or gangsta rapper, it doesn’t matter which as both are interchangeable. Both are American folk devils that rattle the white establishment to its core who then respond with a series of increasingly inept moves to halt the threat to the capitalist status quo. What’s worryingly similar is that despite the zombie hordes being fictional, dead husks of human beings and gangsta rappers being the living, breathing embodiment of young black resistance in the late 80s and early 90s, both are treated with equal levels of violence by the world’s premier democracy.

The NWA biopic couldn’t have been released at a more vital time to add fuel to the fire of wanton destruction of black youth by the most militarized police force on earth. Brazil used to hold that dubious honour, its policemen armed with weapons usually restricted for war zones to help pacify the favelas for the World Cup and the Olympics. Now for the best part of two decades the American police have benefited from access to surplus military equipment that saw service in both wars with Iraq and the War on Terror in Afghanistan. Since 1997, 4.3 billion dollars worth of military arms has found its way into police forces across the United States. The backlash from Ferguson has prompted President Obama to act: “We’ve seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people a feeling like there’s an occupying force,” Obama said. “We’re going to prohibit some equipment made for the battlefield that is not appropriate for those police departments.”

Anyone familiar with Dr. Dre’s revolutionary call to arms used early on in the movie, “You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge,” should feel the same, sharp intake of breath they gulped when they first heard Ice Cube roar his follow up lines, “Straight outta Compton, crazy motherfucker named Ice Cube, from the gang called Niggaz With Attitude.” and never let it go until the final bars of “Something 2 Dance 2.” At this moment in time we’re sorely lacking those firebrand rappers that exhilarated, exasperated and infiltrated a generation of teenagers not only in Compton but in white America and even suburban England. Ice Cube was one third of the triumvirate of great political rappers in the late 80s and early 90s, the others being Chuck D of Public Enemy and KRS 1 of Boogie Down Productions. Who is fighting the power as the “Black CNN” now? Kanye West? He couldn’t fight his way out of a Twitter feed.

Can nostalgia save us again? Like those old action stars Arnie and Stallone, are these old school rappers stepping back into the ring because the young punks of today just can’t cut it? Does a mainlined dose of the old “Street Knowledge” get those revolutionary juices rioting again? Does a group like NWA, once again supremely relevant in a time of increased racial divide and austerity, a time described by Jesse Jackson as a “backlash” against Obama’s presidency, act as a piece of third cinema? Are we compelled to take action? Other than revisit our record collections, sadly not. Eazy E’s deliciously reprehensible track, “Nobody Move” would be better suited to the tone of the film. The opening lines, “This is a stick-up, everybody get facedown, Ren, gag their mouths so they can’t make a sound,” say it all. We’re being fleeced of the real story, ganked out of a better movie. Dre and Cube, the two financial titans still standing after the rise and fall of “NWA” are the producers alongside Eazy E’s widow Tomica Woods-Wright and history is always written by the victors.

To the detriment of the film and NWA’s legacy, they’ve effectively gagged the more unpalatable controversy–Cube’s alleged anti-Semitism during his links with the Nation of Islam and Dre’s abusive treatment of women, notably of his former girlfriend and mother to one of his children Michel’le and the notorious beating of Dee Barnes. A Parental Discretion Advisory sticker is certainly not needed here, as the controversy is strictly by the (Hollywood) numbers. Jerry Heller, NWA’s Jewish manager is the main villain of the piece whereas Ren and Yella’s key contributions to the group are largely sidelined. The feeder bands, Dre and Yella’s “World Class Wreckin’ Cru’ and Cube’s “CIA” are brushed over and the simmering background of the Rodney King beating and subsequent LA riots is never allowed to boil over into the picture and scold the audience. Released the shadow of Ryan Gattis’ phenomenal novel “All Involved” about the same subject, this missed opportunity is frankly criminal.

The performances of the cast are uniformly great, and the music still has the recoil of an AK47 and the concert scenes have a faint energy, but the film only threatens to come alive in the final credits. Here we get a taste of what could have been, a stomping montage of real life footage that has the pace, the urgency, and the danger of a drive-by shooting. If only Oliver Stone or Spike Lee had been let loose on “NWA’s” story and Dre and Cube cut away the bullshit then we would have had a swaggering, angry, visceral movie that these harsh times truly deserve. “Straight Outta Compton” needed to be a rambling three-hour monster, bursting at the seams with imagery as wild inventive as “NWA’s” lyrics, a glorious near miss that didn’t take any prisoners, asked for no quarter and gave none. It may have wounded its subjects along the way but it could have been a true sucker punch to Fox News and the startling rise of Donald Trump. Like “NWA” “Straight Outta Compton” never realizes its full potential. Perhaps Dre and Cube have earned the right to whitewash their history as American history has done for years. What a pity we can’t leave the cinema thinking that last line, “Damn, that shit was dope.”