Universal(NEW YORK) — How often do you go to a movie that runs 90 minutes but feels like it’s twice as long? Too often, really, and it’s usually a result of bad storytelling. Well, Straight Outta Compton is two-and-a-half hours long and it feels like it’s only 90 minutes. It’s a product of excellent, albeit sanitized, storytelling.
The opening sequence is a tension-soaked nail-biter in which we meet Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell), a diminutive, tough-talking gang-banger who enters a drug den in Compton, California a team of Navy SEALs might have reservations about breaching. It’s here screenwriters Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff introduce us to the essence of Eazy, and director F. Gary Gray introduces us to a gritty narrative that manages to seduce us, thrill us and, occasionally, make us laugh.
It’s not long before we meet high school lyricist and rapper O’Shea Jackson, a.k.a. Ice Cube (played by Jackson’s son, O’Shea Jackson Jr.), and cutting-edge DJ Andre Young (Corey Hawkins), aka Dr. Dre. With his mother putting pressure on him to do something with his life, Dre moves in with Ice Cube’s cousin and asks his buddy, Eazy, to use his drug money to invest in an album he plans to make with Cube and DJ Yella (Neil Brown Jr.).
Eazy starts to rap, too, and while not the most gifted MC, his real-life experience and charismatic, high-pitched flow, along with his money, makes him the face of the group, dubbed N.W.A.. Gangsta rap is born. Music manager Jerry Heller (Paul Giamatti) scores N.W.A. their first record deal, for 1988’s Straight Outta Compton, featuring “F*** tha Police,” the still-controversial song that made N.W.A. both famous and notorious.
F. Gary Gray does an excellent job here. Working with several actors with limited experience, he simply gets great performances out of everybody. O’Shea Jackson Jr. acquits himself well playing his dad, although his scowl isn’t quite as intimidating as the old man’s but hey, there’s only one Ice Cube. The stand-out performance, though, is Mitchell as the late Eazy-E. It’s an incredibly challenging role in which he’s called upon to be the movie’s emotional center — in essence, the leading man. There are elements of Eazy’s character that aren’t easy to take, but Mitchell will break your heart.
There’s much to like in Straight Outta Compton but the film falls short of being perfect. To be sure, it’s engrossing and when it ends, you want more — more of the raw and gritty story, not the sanitized Hollywood ending we get here and certainly not the sanitized versions of some of the players. Dre may be a great guy now, but he wasn’t always, and Straight Outta Compton practically turns him into a moral authority, particularly when he’s hanging out with still-controversial rap figure Suge Knight (R. Marcos Taylor).
Then again, I’m not here to review what was left out of the movie, or pass judgment on some of N.W.A.’s more repugnant lyrics about women and violence. I’m here to tell you whether or not this is a good film. And Straight Outta Compton is more than good.
Four out of five stars.
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