Straight Outta Compton

Rating: 9/10 (13 February 2016)

My limited knowledge about hip-hop (or whatever it's currently called) is limited to the occasional collaborations of rap/metal implemented during the '80s and '90s by groups such as Aerosmith/Run D.M.C., Beastie Boys/Slayer and Anthrax/Public Enemy. Leaving that aside, I occasionally used to watch some minutes of Yo! MTV Raps!, but it has never been a musical genre I'm particularly interested in. So, I don't pretend to evaluate the veracity of Straight Outta Compton as a musical biopic, and I won't describe it on the basis of my personal tastes or any nostalgia. I will simply say I found it an exceptional movie which precisely captures the contagious energy of a new musical style whose influence would go much farther than anyone had expected... including its fans and haters. The structure of Straight Outta Compton follows the standard of any "road to fame" tale, with its obligatory scales on Triumph, Betrayal, Tragedy and Redemption. But the story isn't as important as the History (with capital letter)... the portrait of a moment in time when the seeds of a turbulent future which has unfortunately not changed very much were sowed. That's why I found it fascinating to witness the key points of this social/cultural revolution, accompanied by dynamic music, solid performances and F. Gary Gray's brilliant direction, whose deceptive simplicity hides an admirable attention to the details in the recreation of facts which still resound nowadays, proving that, like critic Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr once said, "the more things change, the more they stay the same": rap and hip-hop dominate popular music; but the racial tensions in the United States remain in the same degree as when they inspired Ice Cube to write his most famous song. One of the things I liked the most about Straight Outta Compton is the fact that it dedicates the same care to the sequences in concert of N.W.A. and the racial clashes between policemen and youngsters in the black neighborhoods of Los Ángeles. Actors O. Shea Jackson Jr. (who plays Ice Cube, his father in the real life), Corey Hawkins, Jason Mitchell, Neil Brown Jr., Aldis Hodge and R. Marcos Taylor make a perfect work in their roles, bringing hypnotic and absolutely credible performances. In conclusion, I'm not going to say that I will start listening to rap music after having watched Straight Outta Compton; however, I enjoyed the experience very much in each one of its aspects: didactic, visceral, narrative and musical.