Straight Outta Compton is directed by F. Gary Gray and tells the tale of the Hip Hop band NWA and their rise from the Hood to superstar performers in the late 80s and early 90s.
This is a fantastic movie surely one of my favorites of the year for many reasons:
- First is the very dark edge the film has, there is a LOT of swearing in this movie and a fair amount of violence and talk about drugs and sexual scenes and while it will put some off from seeing this movie (and I can understand that) I just dove right in as I love this sort of dark edged filmmaking and Gray stays very true to the roots of the band.
- Secondly the soundtrack is fantastic and it makes seeing this film on the big screen so very worthwhile as when the band starts performing the sound lights up and you really feel the songs in the score system plus I like how the songs in the film reflect what the guys see, probably one of the year's best soundtracks for a film.
- Thirdly the actors themselves do a very good job in this movie, Ice Cube's own son O'Shea Jackson Jr. plays his Dad as a young man in this movie and is very compelling in his own right, Corey Hawkins is really good as the young Dr. Dre (and he reminds me a lot of Tony Todd) as is Jason Mitchell who plays Eazy-E, the three also have a really good chemistry together as the band and Paul Giamatti also delivers a good performance as the main white actor in the film.
Oh and I also enjoyed getting to see Alexandra Shipp as Cube's wife in the later part of the film, why did I mention her you say well it's because she's also going to be playing the young Storm in X-Men Apocalypse next year and I love the look of her in that film (especially with the Mohawk.)
- And lastly the film's use of the era it takes place in is extremely good and it was really really interesting to me to see the birth of not just NWA but other big personalities from their world who would later find success in their own right (there's even a nice reference to Boyz N the Hood which John Singleton directed and who was going to direct this movie before Gray took over as well as a reference to Friday which was Gray's first feature film as a director.) as well as using real news footage and clips from that era.
So yeah I can't recommend Straight Outta Compton highly enough, it's one of my fav films of the year and I will definitely be heading to see this one again in the cinema, 4 and a half out of 5.
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