Straight Outta Compton was way better than it had any business being, but it's hard to leave this movie not having wanted a more focused, darker political film. When I say that the movie is good, I mean that it's well directed with a real budget and talented actors, even Cube's son. Ultimately though the movie was made by, or perhaps even strong armed into the final version by, the people it was based on. Cube, Dre and Eazy's widow Tomica are the movie's executive producers. While those main three are the most significant characters in the story, there's a lot more that went on than what was going to be depicted by these three.
It's the N.W.A. movie, but the group is only the focus of the first third of it. I get that there's more to the story when you get into the solo careers, but it's still the N.W.A. movie. We go pretty quickly from the five loosely knowing each other to "Boyz N Da Hood" to national tour. Compton touches on the members dealings with police (and the subsequent but wholly inaccurate inspiration for "Fuck The Police"), groupies and the FBI letter, but it doesn't focus on what made the group so significant both within hip-hop and in music generally, even without the context of violence in LA. There's a reason that 15 years after the fact twelve-year-old me could bump "Straight Outta Compton" and enjoy it like just came out and feel the aggression within it. That didn't happen when I tried to listen to Public Enemy or KRS or Rakim. The group was bigger than the controversy and the label drama. A great script would have tried to portray this.
My biggest outright issue with the movie is how all the dialogue involved saying the name of the person being addressed. "Come over here, Eazy." "Did you hear this, Dre?" I talk to people all the time. I hardly say their names unless I'm trying to get their attention. My second biggest complain is the amount of daps given in this movie. Write a dope line - daps. Threaten boyfriends of groupies with heavy artillery - daps. Reunite with a former enemy - daps. You'd think the screenwriters ran out of ideas and thought, "Let's have them give daps so we don't have to come up with more words for them to say."
The weirdest twist in this movie is how much it focused on Dre. I've seen pretty much all the interviews done by members of N.W.A., Death Row, Aftermath, what have you. Dre did press but was never really that vocal. As pivotal as he was to the group, he definitely wasn't a frontman. It seemed like more time was spent on his character than Eazy or Cube's. The movie literally ends with him saying he's leaving Suge and then announcing that his label will be called Aftermath. Like, the credits roll right after this. Wtf? This is like when the Lifetime Saved by the Bell movie was actually about Screech. How did we get here? He clearly had his own people punch up the script, but I didn't realize they had to power to do all this.
The movie is probably only 70% accurate -- why is 2Pac recording "Hail Mary" when Dre brings him "California Love"? The way "G Thang" and "Deep Cover" were recorded? Suge wasn't even that scary! A teenager could still walk away from it knowing most of the basic facts. There's just too much to cover even in a 2.5 hour movie. Had it been tighter and darker it would have been a different movie entirely. I guess I'll just hold out for the remake.
No comments:
Post a Comment