Two Different Issues at the Heart of an Intriguing Biopic

Rating: 9/10 (26 August 2015)

The way I see it, Straight Outta Compton has two clear halves of the story of N.W.A. The first half revolves around the struggles the group faced shortly after its inception with racist cops (but in the cops' justification the group looks like a group of gangbangers), and the second half revolves around Ice Cube's fallout from the group due to not trusting the manager played by Paul Giamatti.
The opening of this film deals with Eazy-E before he became Eazy-E, and while it seems out of place, starting a movie about a music group, it lets us know how the group came up with the money to get started. We learn Eazy-E is a big drug dealer in a sequence where he is getting scammed out of his money and then must make a run for it when the cops show up shortly afterward (and very conveniently). It is probably the closest the film comes to an "action" sequence, and it gives us a sense of the life the group members had in Compton before they came to be a popular rap group. The main thing to take away from the opening is that it is exciting for a biopic.
One of the best scenes of this film is towards the end of the "first half" I described in the first paragraph. A seemingly simple sequence which visually describes the band's inspiration behind their popular song "F*** Tha Police" paves way for a scene when police officers attempt to stop NWA from performing that song. Of course NWA doesn't listen to them and perform the song in order to give a stance for freedom of speech, and they do so very effectively, motivating their fans to riot against police once shots are fired. It is very satisfying to watch with all the unnecessary police brutality we still see today - the scene is relevant today even if it depicts events from the 90s.
The second half is just as interesting and focuses more on what each character wants independently of the other characters/members of NWA. It all starts when Ice Cube - played by Ice Cube's son - refuses to sign a contract with the Paul Giamatti character since it seems he and Eazy-E are ripping off the rest of the group. Ice Cube definitely has a right to take a stance since he is depicted as the best lyricist of the group, constantly writing lyrics on pads before NWA's rise to fame. Ice Cube even scares the group (at least Giamatti's character) when he produces a track that cleverly tries to put the rest of NWA in their place. Ice Cube's son dominates this half of the film as his father (they look like the same exact person by the way) and I feel he is deserving of an Oscar nomination - my guess is that if he gets a nomination it will be for a supporting role. The only thing I dislike about this second half of the film is that just like in The Social Network the business dispute is not well-explained, and this seems to be because the filmmakers try to dumb it down to just "contract disagreements" for the audience. I would prefer more detail, even if I wouldn't fully understand it at first.
You should go see this film not to learn about NWA, but because it is simply a great film which just happens to be grounded in a story about NWA.
3.5/4.0