Format: DVD from NetFlix on laptop.
Every now and then, I watch a movie that makes me realize just how white I really am. Shaft made me feel white, Superfly and Boyz n the Hood made me feel even whiter, and Sweet Sweetback’s Badasssss Song made me feel translucent. I don’t know if any movie has ever made me feel whiter than Straight Outta Compton. I’m not going to pretend that I know anything about rap because I don’t. I’m not even going to pretend that I like rap that much; in truth I’m not that interested in music anymore at all. The challenge for a film like Straight Outta Compton for a late-40s white guy like me is to make me care about the story beyond the music. So, it’s a good thing that this is a hell of a story with a collection of great performances from newer actors and a seasoned professional or two.
We’re introduced to the members of N.W.A. and given a taste of their life in the first part of the film. Eric “Eazy-E” Wright (Jason Mitchell) deals drugs. Andre “Dr. Dre” Young (Corey Hawkins) struggles with wanting to spin records and with what his mother expects him to do. O’Shea “Ice Cube” Jackson (O’Shea Jackson Jr.—Ice Cube’s son) is a high school senior just trying to survive in Compton. Dre and Antoine “DJ Yella” Carraby (Neil Brown Jr.) spin at a local club. One night, Dre gets busted while trying to break up a fight. The next day, Eazy-E bails him out. Dre convinces E to start a record label. When their first act falls through, refusing to read Cube’s lyrics, the four along with E’s friend Lorenzo “MC Ren” Patterson (Aldis Hodge) and Dre’s friend The D.O.C. (Marlon Yates Jr.) perform the song themselves and create their own label and the group N.W.A. And it’s a hit.
