powerful and entertaining, if less than great

Rating: 8/10 (18 August 2015)

Straight Outta Compton is about Three guys growing up in the hood of the Compton section of Los Angeles - Eric Wright (Easy E), Andre Young (Dr. Dre) and O'Shea Jackson (Ice Cube) - who come together through some various reasons (trying to get out of selling drugs and getting almost run over by police-driven bulldozer; the frustration of continuing with the basic R&B dance music of the day; writing lyrics that will push the envelope) and try to make some rap music that challenges the norm. There are ups, there are major downs (including death), and in the end it's all like 'wow, we came THIS far?'
This is a refreshing, hard-R rated trip into not simply a little rap group who sold a few million records and burned out after a few years (technically anyway, Dre and Ice Cube went on to monumental careers). This is a piece of modern history that has to be told: how 'gangster rap' came into its own in worldwide public consciousness. Like much of the best aggressive music for young people, though certainly not exclusive to them, it addresses what's going on in the world that group's in, but here with the added social-political edge: what are cops doing? What has happened to where people have to be "thuggish"? Or, in a sub-textual level, do people from places like Compton act super-hard and angry and act super-tough to make up for what little power they have in their neighborhoods? But anyway, back to this movie...
This is a blend of the conventional (but often quite good and challenging) musician bio-pic, with the highs and lows and egos that become too big for everyone and how money comes into trouble and so on (not to mention the manager who isn't all he says he is), and an all-too distressing look at how nothing's changed with regards to urban/COP violence and conflicts (and actually, I think as a reaction to Obama honestly, has gotten worse). Arguably, the cops are really the villains here, certainly for this group of people, though Suge Night kind of takes over that mantle in the second half with his scenes of thug-life.
What makes it so compelling is that we really get invested in these three main guys, and manager Jerry Heller (Paul Giamatti) - Dre, Cube, and Easy E - and then we see how invigorating and exciting it is for them to get together, which makes them coming apart so sad (though inevitable). These aren't card-board gang-banger types; even Easy-E, who has maybe the least talent of the three main guys (Ren and Yella are kind of less than one-dimensional), they have humor and pathos to them, they care about how their messages are getting out there, not being censored, and then... sure, the parties, the women, the drugs, they're there.
In the third act - 1993, as soon as it comes on the screen is actually the cue - is not as strong as the first two-thirds, when even as the group comes apart the individual sagas of how they try to keep going on as solo acts is fascinating and funny and frightening and so on. But somehow in the last half hour the film becomes rushed, and the feeling that a LOT got left on the cutting room floor becomes more apparent. And there's one cliché involving someone getting rather sick - spoiler, it's Easy, another spoiler he died in 1995, this is a matter of public record and all - that doesn't gel with the rest of the movie. But until then, Straight Outta Compton is a spectacular look at how real art and discourse can come out of a place as hellish as Compton; these guys made real protest music, and it resonates today for good reason. If nothing else, the movie does a masterful job of getting the audience to care about what the music has to say.
One last thing: 98% of this cast fills these real-life roles so well it's hard to see anyone else, certainly with Ice Cube's own son. The 2% exception are two scenes with Snoop Doggy Dogg. When he comes on screen, it's a wonder why they didn't just get the real-life Snoop to come in as himself.