"Straight Outta Compton" almost hits the ball outta the park.

Rating: 8/10 (15 August 2015)

There's a baseball expression that we've probably all heard: "touch all the bases". It's a reference to the rule that a player who hits a home run has to run around the entire baseball diamond and make contact with each base for the run to count. Every player comes to home plate wanting to accomplish this feat, but, over the course of the game, relatively few of them reach their goal. In order to be successful at telling its story, a movie has to touch all the bases too. A group of young men wearing baseball caps help "Straight Outta Compton" (R, 2:27) do just that although, in this case, an instant replay may be required to verify the accomplishment.
This film tells the story of the pioneering gangsta rap group N.W.A. and its five main members who rose above their circumstances on the mean streets of mid-1980s Compton, California to help create a new sub-genre within hip-hop music. Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins) and DJ Yella (Neil Brown, Jr.) are spinning discs in a local club, while a friend, Ice Cube (Cube's real-life son O'Shea Jackson, Jr.), has been writing rhymes in spiral notebooks. When Dre gives Cube a chance to rap in the club, a couple other guys from their neighborhood, MC Ren (Aldis Hodge) and small-time drug dealer Eazy E (Jason Mitchell), are in the club and are impressed with the music. When E bails Dre out of jail after Dre mouths off to a cop, E and Dre start talking about making something out of that music. With Cube and the others joining them, N.W.A. is formed. Cube writes, E raps and Dre produces their first song, "Boyz-n-da-Hood" which becomes a hit.
This began a relatively short, but eventful, impactful and timely run for the group. Their first problem was how to gain wider acceptance for a musical art form that few people considered music or art. The answer was a white Jewish record producer named Jerry Heller (Paul Giamatti). E starts Ruthless Records with Heller, who becomes the group's manager and gets the guys their first record deal. N.W.A.'s star rises quickly. Maybe too quickly. Egos, greed and petty jealousies divide the group's members and come between them and Heller, all of which threatens all of their careers – and their growing fortunes. These problems become grudges which lead to anger, violence and the kind of tension and drama you might get in, say, game 7 of a Major League Baseball playoff series.
"Straight Outta Compton" really does cover all the bases, even if it just skims the tops of some. Along with the rise and fall of N.W.A., we get very good character development of the main players (including a family tragedy for one of the characters, the death of another and Cube's developing career as an actor), and we get to see what happens to these men post-N.W.A. We're also introduced to other rappers who became popular during this period, some of which are still recording today. A few soundbites of mid-80s news clips open the film and very quick video and audio clips, carrying forward the stories of several of the characters, close the movie. In between, we some news events and commentary which give context and significance to the group's music.
The problem is that the depiction of some developments is unbalanced. We see video of Rodney King being beaten by police, but there's no mention of white bystander Reginald Denny being beaten by rioters enraged over the outcome of the officers' trial. In fact, every one of the group's encounters with the LAPD (and police in other cities) is shown as confrontational, and every single police officer portrayed as racist and abusive. Understanding that their mistreatment by police is a major source of the anger that fueled N.W.A.'s music, this completely one-sided portrayal of police is as bad as recent movies "Merchants of Doubt" making everyone who questions climate change appear unscrupulous or "Do You Believe?" showing every atheist as depressed and immoral.
Then there's the ambiguous characterization of Jerry Heller. He is shown throughout the film helping make the group successful and caring about them as individuals, but a rising distrust of him from some of the group's members culminates with a scene that leaves whether he was in fact good or bad for N.W.A. very unclear. Were all the bases touched? Yes, but it would have helped the film if all were touched with authority.
But even these weaknesses don't negate what this film accomplishes. As a portrait of late 80s and early 90s rappers and the groups and record labels they created, their movement can be seen with a wider lens than in 2009's commendable, but limited "Notorious" (about the life and death of rapper Notorious B.I.G.). As a depiction of actual events and the people who made them happen, this movie is even more powerful than impressive and dramatic movies like 1991's "Boyz n the Hood" (which is referenced in this film's script). At the end of the day, as it takes a long, hard look at problems black Americans still deal with today, this is one of the most important movies of 2015. "Straight Outta Compton" may not have quite hit the ball over the wall in centerfield, but an inside-the-park homerun is still pretty impressive – and gets this entertaining, informative and very relevant film an "A-".