Straight Outta Compton, with a thundering pulse and an appetite for destruction that’s also famished for construction and re-construction, is far more satisfying and substantial than your average music biopic. In dissecting the cultural necessity of N.W.A. and why their voice is so vital, director F. Gary Gray (Friday) compacts his most thoughtful, lovingly made and exhilarating movies in years, decades even. For as boisterous as its presentation can become, it gets to the heart of the legacy of the group, values (most) of its members and takes concentrated efforts to make their impact felt. It’s timely, passionate and out for vengeance. It’s everything it has to be to tell these teenagers’ story with justice.
Don’t take this mean it’s entirely accurate, though. Not by any means. This is a sugarcoated, melodramatic and heavily sanitized recount with an extremely condensed narrative depicting what went down for this group of California boys from 1987-1995. All the normal highs-and-lows within the genre get explored, with every performance portrayed over-the-top and the action constantly ballooned in its heightened extremes. But the over-dilated story fits the larger-than-life ambitions of this rags-to-riches saga. It needs to be deafening, for that's how Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, MC Ren and DJ Yella got their voices heard in the first place. And it succeeds mightily in that regard. Everything here is bombastic, loud and relentlessly in your face, from the music to the drama, and Gray’s movie is actually better for it.
Having Dre and Cube attached as producers, the vehicle hands these musicians an autobiography-of-sorts to let them explore their odyssey and the legacy, mistakes, gratifications and impact they made in the process. They look back on their lost comrade E with diligent respect, if not necessarily complete reverence for the facts. Their past struggles are laminated with a tinted glaze, and often are made better than they were in the moment. It’s a little disingenuous but, considering this is all for the fans, it’s in their best interest to have this serve as a salute to the artist we lost too soon. Its plain-faced but grounded sincerity almost entirely makes up for its lack of total credibility, and it's finely anchored by surprisingly tender performances from our inexperienced lead actors, including O’Shea Jackson Jr. as his father, Cube, Corey Hawkins as Dre and Jason Mitchell as E.
Gray's watch is here alongside screenwriters Jonathan Herman and Andrew Berloff to make sure these characters are developed and hearty, however, and this creates the equilibrium between authenticity and eccentricity. The beating heart is always felt, but there’s always one eye looking out and making sure not everything gets taken completely out of the realms of reality. This observant, competent-handled presence also makes sure the story doesn’t boggle down the entertainment factor either, for Straight Outta Compton thankfully is never as lumbering as these biopics often become. At 147 minutes, the pacing is always exceptionally fluid, making the two-and-a-half hours breeze by without a single second devoted to checking your wristwatch.
It’s massively captivating, heightened and exemplified by its action-heavy opening sequence there to let you know exactly what kind of hyperbolic picture you’re in for in gloriously overblown fashion. This often pushes the N.W.A biopic into its hammier tendencies too, though, especially as the second act leads the once compelling personification of producer Jerry Heller, played by Paul Giamatti, into a generically sterile, flat villain for our leads. Granted, it’s hard to know exactly what happened, but often his motivations become understated in the scheme of things. It likely comes compacted through many bitter years on Dre and Cube’s part, and this isn’t to say he was in the right by any means, but it kills a lot of the complexities of the narrative. Also, when the band breaks apart mid-way through, the narrative of Straight Outta Compton has a harder time keeping itself even-keeled.
Again, though, the fans want to see their favorite musicians glamorized in the way they see them in their eyes and that’s fine, if to an extent. But it does come at the sacrifice of level storytelling, and makes the impact of this journey weakened. Gray's movie is also not doing itself any favors by extracting Ren and Yella, played by Aldis Hodge and Neil Brown Jr., respectively, out of the picture nearly completely. They barely even get a moment in the spotlight, let alone their time to shine. It adds to the bloated ego behind-the-scenes felt throughout, played with well in certain regards but, in this case, appearing as though Cube and Dre think they and E were the only real members of their party. They’re the ones who get depth and character analysis, and even that only comes to a point. It celebrates the good and throws quite a bit under the rug, but, then again, that’s what they’re going for here.
Those wanting a comprehensive examination of N.W.A. won’t find it within Straight Outta Compton, at least not entirely. Their importance is shown and heard, but the details get a little fudged in the process. But this movie is entirely for the fans, and they likely already know what happened. It’s not so much a recollection but a celebration — and, in that regard, a pretty damn good one. This is far livelier than, say, Notorious or Get Rich or Die Tryin’, and thankfully it still invests in the spirit of the group but never loses its reverence. It’s one-sided, but it’s a side worth being told, and its conventional storytelling is forgiven simply for how fantastically absorbing this dramatization becomes. Much like the album sharing its namesake, Straight Outta Compton is abrasive, ferocious and unforgiving in its approach. It knows this and isn’t afraid to gratify its lewd behavior. Gray knows you’re here to witness the strength of street knowledge and, though details are missed, the message is still heard, loud and clear.