Starring Jason Mitchell, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Paul Giamatti, Corey Hawkins, Aldis Hodge, Neil Brown Jr.
Rarely does a musician tell it like a rapper. The spoken-word gangster poet is the most honest teller of truth found in any medium, and none told the truth like NWA. N****z Wit Attitudes held the world to task for the unfair treatment of the average African-American person in places like Compton, but brutal honesty naturally clashes with brutal honest, and it was their inability to pull punches that caused their implosion.
That’s the first damning evidence presented in Straight Outta Compton that tells the story of five kids from South Central, Los Angeles who fell victim to the old adage ‘too much, too soon’. However it wasn’t what they did in their time that would endure over the years but the forever-lasting effect it would have on the world. Their music transcended simple popularity; it spoke to a generation of people, whether they be black or white and on either side of the law, giving them a voice. Years after Rodney King, the L.A Riots and the social reform that followed the aspect that people use to reference this time isn’t the politics but three simple words: ‘F*** Tha Police’.
The five nobodies who make it big is mirrored in the casting. Apart from the veteran Paul Giamatti they’re all green, but just like NWA they rise to the occasion. The only familiar name is O’Shea Jackson Jr., and that’s because it’s the given name of his father, Ice Cube. Corey Hawkins as Dr. Dre and Aldis Hodge and Neil Brown Jr. as MC Ren and DJ Yella respectively all put in solid performances, but it’s Jason Mitchell as the late, great Eazy-E who steals the show.
Straight Outta Compton stumbles only once in recreating history by glossing over some of the more negative aspects of the main focusses of the film (cough*Dre*cough*violence*cough*women*cough) but it has no issue in pulling into line some of the more colourful men and women, in particular producer Jerry Heller. The animosity, illegal activity and outright violence is acknowledged, but producers Ice Cube and Dr. Dre offer no apologies; this is a demonstration of the world they came from. Their music is personal reflection of this world and this film a telling of it like it truly was: just as the NWA did all those years ago.
8 of 10