Straight Outta Compton is the biopic that focuses on the formation of N.W.A. which led to the formation of Ruthless Records, Death Records, Snoop Dogg’s career, Tupac’s career, Beats By Dre and Ice Cubes recurring role on Law & Order S.V.U. Tracing the events of the mid-80’s to the mid-90’s where N.W.A. was formed by Eazy-E, Dr. Dre, Dj Yella, MC Ren and Ice Cube under the guidance of Paul Giamatti’s Jerry Heller, who took his 20% (and if you know your N.W.A. history a whole lot more.) We see the band get together, the band break up and the band tries to get back together all against the backdrop of racial tensions between the mean streets and the police.
As far as biopics go, this is definitely a step above many of the other recent biopics of the last decade because it chooses to forgo many of the stock-standard plot beats. For once we are spared the flashback to a traumatic childhood event or the artist ready to play their biggest gig only to go backwards in the narrative and work our way back to that point. The film runs chronologically and really sets the tone from the beginning with a look at Eazy-E’s drug-dealing days. The cinematography really builds a sense of place as the camera moves effortlessly through locations that establish the streets of Compton, the L.A. Riots and stages where they performed. The editing adds to the energy as we move through the progression of an album’s creation and the tours which is all threaded together with a great soundtrack.
The casting is strong throughout especially with the key cast of Dre, Eazy-E and Ice Cube with Ice Cube’s own son, O’Shea Jackson Jnr playing the main-man himself. The likeness is amazing and this is one case where nepotism hasn’t been a complete train wreck *cough-cough* Jaden Smith *cough-cough* because O’Shea really brings that intensity that Ice Cube had back in the day. Corey Hawkins and Jason Mitchell play Dre and Eazy-E respectively and they play them well, but it’s also the casting of the smaller, but more famous roles of Snoop Dogg and Tupac are so well done that you’re questioning whether they’re the real deal or not. The film also stars a lot of brand placement with Adidas, Nike and Raiders taking center stage in almost every scene and we even get Beats By Dre rubbed in our faces before the end credits start rolling.
Like any biopic there is always the question of how accurate and true the film is. All biopics will add additional drama to make the story more engaging but in a case where dealing with a group of people as opposed to a single artist such as Ray Charles, Jeff Buckley or Johnny Cash then there are bound to be disagreements as to the accuracy of how events played out. Even Ice Cube himself admitted that there could have been five different versions of this film so getting a definitive point of view was never going to happen. Omissions can and do happen when making a film based on a true story and when you have a film produced by the artists the movies based on then the omissions could be even more heavily scrutinised. We gloss over a lot of the past indiscretions of almost all involved but hey, if the Academy was willing to overlook this for the Stephen Hawking biopic then I’m sure we could have a few nominations come award season.
Overall, with great casting, excellent cinematography, a good soundtrack along with choosing to actively avoid many of the tired cliches of biopics, you are willing to forgive the glossing over of some of the more interesting elements of N.W.A.
Straight Outta Compton gets Four out of Five Stars (or Four out of Five really annoying memes)
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