N.W.A: Straight Outta Compton

First of all, I am a white man, 58 years old. opinions will always vary on quality of movies, but I am shocked at many of the comments/reviews I've seen for soc (straight outta Compton). To say one needs to know ebonics and ridiculous things such as that........is racist. I was shocked at how good the acting was. Oshea Jackson was the weak link in my opinion; but paul giamatti, and the guy who portrayed easy-e were amazing. I was prepared for a typical bio (especially music bios) where the story is way ahead of the acting. Guy playing dre was excellent as well. So I was pleasantly surprised. This is an outstanding movie. One need not have knowledge of the hip hop culture/industry, any more than one needs to know about southern America to watch and appreciate steel magnolias or fried green tomatoes (ok,, I'm dating myself here). I don't like the sound of u.s. southern accents, but that doesn't mean those flicks are not great. So please. To the point that many like to mention about the vulgarity: it was real life depiction! movies about 1600 England have a certain dialect. Same with this. people in different parts of the u.s. speak very differently. This should not be a drawback, but rather a very realistic telling of what happened. Open your minds, not everything is Ellen and Seinfeld. I have lived in l.a. since 1982 and I found it to be very interesting on many levels. Great writing, directing and acting. If it is very very odd for you, then perhaps you'll learn something watching it. I highly recommend this film.

Everyone one here who complains about the movie don't know what they're talking about. This movie is reality! Police brutality, growing up in the hood, the extravagant lifestyle of singers/rappers is all there. Someone complained about this being vulgar and not appropriate for kids? No duh, it's rated R. Even though it was a long movie, I didn't want it to end. You really felt what was going on in the movie. When they were angry, you were angry. When they were sad, you couldn't help but to feel that as well. Don't listen to the people complaining, and calling them "selfish". They're probably just upset at how the police were portrayed, which was the reality for N.W.A. The movie is amazing. Watch it. This movie was extremely enjoyable, and despite the length, it felt like it went by in the blink of an eye.

I was reading some of the reviews about this amazing movie and wanted to laugh. "Oh my gosh, it has sex, drugs and violence. Boo hoo!" I mean, do people do any kind of research before shelling out their $10? This movie takes place in Compton in the mid 80s. This wasn't Mr. Rogers Neighborhood, this was a rough, hardcore area where blacks didn't know if they would be arrested and assaulted by cops or shot at by gangsters anytime they stepped out the door. "Straight Outta Compton" is one of the most remarkable rags to riches stories about a group that changes the face to music, movies and pop culture on a grander scale.

The movies introduces us to the five members of N.W.A.: Ice Cube, Easy-E, Dr. Dre, DJ Yella, and MC Ren. We see how the group formed, how they met manager Jerry Heller, the recording of their first album, the flack they received on tours, their constant battle over censorship and freedom of speech, their lives of excess and partying, the trouble they experienced by law enforcement for just standing there, the battle of egos, inner band turmoil, and eventually the splitting up of the group. If you are a fan of hip hop, you know how much of an influence N.W.A. had to the rise of West Coast Hip Hop and Gangsta Rap. At this time, the only real way to hear new music was the radio, and due to their controversial lyrics, they never got any airplay, but the media helped create buzz and popularity almost indadvertedly by talking about how controversial the group was and how people didn't like their music. That resulted in the band becoming multi-platinum superstars. In fact, the band didn't just grab the black audience, but was highly popular with white men, who started turning away from rock music, which was facing a decline due to cheesy hair metal production, to this new, powerful, anti-establishment credo that rock once represented. Yes, there is drug use, sex and violence, but this was the life these guys knew, and no matter how far you go, you never forget your roots or completely leave them.

The actors all do an excellent job in their roles. The only real veteran in this film is Paul Giamatti, who does his usual solid performance, this time as the sleazy, manipulative manager Jerry Heller. Interestingly enough, Giamatti was in another music biopic this year, Love and Mercy, about another influential Southern California band (The Beach Boys). Both bands, very much from the same area, had such a influence to their periods of time and represented completely different worlds of Southern California youth life.

Even if you're not a fan of hip-hop, I still think you need to this as their effect on pop culture in general is still prevalent today. Also, on a sadder note, the issues of police brutality on minorities still is a glaring problem that makes F the Police sound just as fresh as it did in 1988.

I didn't personally grow up with NWA's music but I'm aware of how impactful this group was to the music industry and I think this film will please fans of the NWA.

Straight Outta Compton is about the formation of the well known rap group NWA, their impact on the music industry and the difficulties they faced as a group.

Whilst the film is about the NWA, it mainly focuses on three of its members: Ice Cube, Eazy-E and Dr. Dre. I really enjoyed Straight Outta Compton. I loved how it showed scenes of them writing and performing their music. It conveyed the passion they had for music whilst living in a dangerous area. I thought F. Gary Gray managed to show the dangerous aspects of Compton in a great way. The editing of the film was done really well. The first half didn't feel like it was slowing down which left me fairly engaged with the story. The second half is where the film did get more dramatic and that's where I thought it started to slow down a bit but despite that I never felt bored. I think the issue with the film is its accuracy. Since Dr. Dre and Ice Cube produced this film, I think a fair amount of events weren't depicted as it would them look bad which does make sense. However, I do wish the film had been more honest with its story.

The performances in this movie make the film really good. I enjoyed seeing some of the cameos of musical artists at that time. The casting for that was really done since so many of them resembled the look of the real life people and managed to act like them. O'Shea Jackson Jr., who is Ice Cube's son, plays the role of his father really well. Corey Hawkins does an excellent job as Dr. Dre and Jason Mitchell really surprised me with his performance as Eazy-E. Another surprise was Paul Giamatti who played the group's manager. He also did a very good job portraying Jerry Heller.

Straight Outta Compton really worked for me. I loved F. Gary Gray's approach to this story and it addressed a few issues that still place in the world today. I still wish it had more honesty but I was thoroughly entertained by the story and the performances.

Straight Outta Compton tells the the story of the most influential group in hip-hop and rap, that group being N.W.A or as Eazy-E so gracefully puts it N****s With Attitudes. Directed by F. Gary Gray, Straight Outta Compton is, without a doubt, his best work behind the camera. However, by traditional standards, that isn't saying much. Gray is no stranger to N.W.A, Ice Cube or Dr. Dre having directed numerous music videos featuring their music. While the film is a very nice "fairy tale" telling of a story filled with tension, violence and rage, it lacks the balls to tell the actual story. Instead, the film picks and chooses what to tell and what to leave out, very strategically as well considering the film is two and a half hours plus. Starting with the streets of Compton, we are introduced to each character with a bang. Each of them getting their own introduction as if they were folk heroes or something, whether it is petty crime or writing rap lyrics, the film shows these characters with a sense of heroism to them no matter what they're doing. The best performance out of the group would have to be Corey Hawkins as Dr. Dre. Hawkins delivers in every scene he's in, making it a true standout performance among actors that sometimes feel like they're in over their heads, more specifically Jason Mitchell, who plays Eazy-E. Mitchell feels more like a caricature of the late rapper rather than an actual actor portraying a real life counterpart. The film moves quickly enough and focuses long and hard on all of the partying, the women, the guns and the drugs, so much so that you start to wonder whether the film is a N.W.A music video tribute. Despite the falsehoods, the glorification and the shaky performances, Straight Outta Compton works well as an entertaining film. The only downside of this film is its haphazard statement on Police Brutality. While that is as prevalent as a topic can get for a film from 2015 about N.W.A, that was not the highlight of the group. The highlight of the group was the fight against the censors. A fight that they won, obviously. Despite that truth, the film wallows in trying to be a message about police brutality rather than a film about these men, their flaws and their triumphs, their ups and their downs. Unfortunately, it leaves us knowing nothing new about these people and at two and a half hours, we should leave this film knowing every little detail about them. Instead, we're left wanting more out of them. Overall, Straight Outta Compton ends up being an entertaining film about some of America's favorite rap artists instead of an important one.