Chi-Raq

While the movie touches on many problems that Chicago faces, in my opinion it misses the most important one: THE WAR on DRUGS. You can blame gun shows, the NRA, lack of education, etc, all you want, but the fact of the matter is and will remain that the violence isn't because of guns...the huge incarceration rate is not because of guns...it all stems back to the war on drugs. Guns don't kill people, violent gangs do and they do it because of the money associated with the black market drug trade.

Violence, gangs and turf wars are the direct result of the drug trade. Drug dealers rule the streets because the economic opportunities are terrible in the inner-city and because so much can be made from the drug trade. Poor youth see more opportunity in that criminal world than in going to school.

So will eliminating the war on drugs solve the problem? Probably not, but it would be a big step and do a lot to take the power away from the gangs and it would keep the police from arresting black males in epidemic rates.

I could go on and on about how terrible the War on Drugs is for the black community but this is simply a review and I wanted to convey my disappointment that this is not brought up as a substantial issue.

Chicago is referred to as Chi-Raq. American losses in Afghanistan from 2001 to today amounts to 2349, in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 amounts to 4424, and Chicago from 2001 to 2015 with 7356 murders. Dolmedes (Samuel L. Jackson) refers to ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes' play Lysistrata. Chi-Raq (Nick Cannon) is a rapper. Lysistrata (Teyonah Parris) is his girlfriend. Cyclops (Wesley Snipes) is a local thug. Irene (Jennifer Hudson) suffers the lost of her child from a stray bullet. Lysistrata leads a campaign by the women to withhold sex until the men stop the violence.

Spike Lee takes on a tough subject. The 'solution' is poetic and way too simplistic. I get the allure of pairing the classic Greek play with the present day reality. If nothing else, he's agitating for a solution to this intractable problem. He's not giving up. As for the movie itself, I have a few problems with the cast. John Cusack does not fit as a priest. I accept his Chicago connection and his need to help with this issue. He has never played this type of role and it's very odd to see him here. The General King Kong character is even worst. He is ridiculous. I don't know what Spike Lee is trying to say about the military and what connection they have with the murder rate. On the other hand, Jennifer Hudson's presence is powerful. Overall, this is a mix bag but at least, Spike Lee is willing to tackle the issue like he did so many years ago.

I give it a C+ or ** (2 stars) PROS: Strong acting performances of the leads and supporting cast. All worked well in flow with cameos of celebs sprinkled throughout the film. Compelling visual cinematography that captures the tone of the Windy City. Well-thought out production design of scene selections that provided a depth of realism to the narrative. The colors of the scenes and costume design worked well in the symbolism of the divisiveness of gang violence and the battle-of-the-sexes theme that propped up the film's storyline. The use of rap lyrics in communicating Chicago's plight and connecting the film's characters. This film was vintage Spike Lee from his slow dolly shots, multiple-person narrative, symbolic cinematography in vintage snap shots of the community, pretentiously didactic and preachy in dialogue, usage of colors in visual storytelling (Spike Lee is masterful with colors), the assemblage of music overtones, and film storytelling covering various angles on a variety of social issues. As an unapologetic artist Spike Lee proves to out-stand himself an auteur in his own right--staying on top of the plight of Black America and delivering a film revelation one after the other prompting conversation and new appeal for solutions. Everything short of an activist-charge, Spike Lee has been rather consistent in his pursuit of pressing current affairs in his filmography. Like him or not he remains relevant and cannot be ignored. Chi-Raq is a great Spike Lee film. Not necessarily a great film.

CONS: Weak film story delivery in dialogue, character-build, and theme. This film misfired at all elements to a given genre. It worked poorly as a comedy, worked poorly as a satire, and worked poorly as a drama. Thus, the film worked poorly as multi-varied genre of the three. This polemic of a film was carried by an uneven, sporadic plot that was crowded with characters and subplots making for a perplexing flow throughout the movie. The use of rhyming dialogue that sporadically popped up in the script seemed a bad blend with the attempt to parallel the Lysistrata play, the classic Greek comedy by Aristophanes. Unless, of course, Lee was attempting for a parody of the timeless, ancient Athenian play. The insertion of Samuel L. Jackson's character as a well-dressed funnyman to set the stage of the next scene and add perspective of a universal moralism was a consistent miss. At times I felt like I was watching a Capital One® commercial. With slapstick humor that came off mostly bland with a few highlighted moments, comedy continues to prove to be Spike Lee's weakest working genre in filmmaking--not to confuse the brilliancy of timed humor in his earlier works. The battle-of-sex prologue that set the tone of the film which later extended in a jumble of social issues only to get back to it was executed rather shoddy and distractedly.

ADD'L NOTES: The attempt at provoking his audience as an element in entertainment is vintage Spike Lee. Lee's style is to take his audience on an emotional roller coaster in an entertaining fashion. His tendency to probe at the core of human feelings works well for him in embellishment and performance in visual-spatial form. My real issue with Chi-Raq were essential two things--one, the lack of feel for the city--Chicago was one Lee never fully grasped, and two, a misdirection and misappropriation of his audience--who exactly was this film made for and why?

I knew little of this film when I sat to watch it, only that it was from Spike Lee, and I was open to whatever it chose to do. The opening credits suggest seriousness and grit; this is an impression that continues even at the same time as it adds theatrical presentation to the delivery, and rhyming couplets to the dialogue. At this point I was intrigued by the style as well as the content but as the ideas grew the film really gets out of control. I am really not sure what the vision for the film was, and what was told to the cast to draw in so many big names – but I'm guessing different things attracted them since so many of them appear to be in different films from the others.

The film touches on a lot of serious subjects, but at the same time it tries to involve comedy, musical numbers, sexual farce, and generally odd or misjudged attempts at comedy. The result is a film that feels so totally unfocused that it is really difficult to stay with it. Being kind, you could describe this wild energy as being enough to carry the viewer along, but I did not find this to be the case. Instead I wanted it to be better – to be worthy of its subject matter and its better elements; but this never came together, and I found it quite frustrating just how messy it was.

The starry cast doesn't help because even when they are really good, they are distracting by their fame, as well as the disjointed nature of their individual material. Parris is strong in the lead, but struggles to find a through-line across all her varying material. Cannon is wholly unconvincing throughout, while Snipes' comedy gangster undercuts the grit of this part of the film. Bassett and Hudson are excellent in their scenes – and it is not their fault that their scenes exist in a film different from the other scenes. The parade of familiar faces is distracting (Cusack, Jackson, Harris, Chappelle etc), although some are used well. I do always enjoy seeing people from The Wire and Oz, however getting Whitlock Jr. to deliver his most famous line (well, word) was just another misjudged moment.

Chi-Raq has a lot of ideas and energy, and it is an experience to watch it for these. However the film is wildly unfocused and messy, ultimately failing to hold it all together or to deliver a satisfying whole.

I'm a fan of Spike Lee's movies and was expecting to be cajoled into deep thought on today's urban problems by this film. Mr Lee has directed some very good films. Do the Right Thing is still one of my favorites. However, in Chi-raq Mr Lee has taken a highly stylized approach to his subject, and this becomes evident early in the film when every character is speaking in rhyming couplets. This continues nearly unbroken throughout the movie. I must say I found urban poetry in Do the Right Thing, but none in this film. The rhyming began to feel artificial, not conducive to either the mood or the setting, and it quickly wore thin.

Additionally, Mr Lee gave the film a strongly burlesque quality, at times extremely so, and this was clearly meant to be comic. The humor was so exaggerated, however, that it seemed ill- suited to the very serious problem it was trying to address: the murder rate of young African-Americans at the hands of other African-Americans in urban America.

Some reviewers on IMDb have asserted that Mr Lee failed to address the real problem, the "war on drugs", but the topic of the film is more complicated than simple bad law enforcement policy. Lee gave the film a hard sexually charged theme, focusing on reducing violence through female induced sexual abstinence. But he reduces the focus of responsibility in the broader society to white racism, which is likely partially true but not completely so, and even this aspect of the film is presented as burlesque.

The film's principle faults: It is not good drama, it is not good comedy, and it is not a film which provokes much thought on a problem that truly deserves attention.