No Boyz n The Hood but still a solid story

Rating: 7/10 (18 August 2015)

Compton, CA. 1986. Eric "Easy E" Wright narrowly escapes the police when his drug deal goes bust. Back in his home Andre "Dr. Dre" Young moves out of his mom's house. O'Shea "Ice Cube" Jackson witnesses first hand gang intimidation when his school bus gets cut off by gangsters who were taunted by his friends. Cube goes to Dre's new house and tells them about it and his new rhymes. At a club Cube raps the rhymes while Dre spins. There Dre, Cube, E, MC Ren and DJ Yella meet. Dre convinces E to invest in music. After E bails Dre from jail, they form Ruthless Records with E rapping out Cube's rhymes Boyz in the Hood. This draws the attention of a music manager Jerry Heller. In 1988, their group NWA has have solid fan base. Jerry invites recording people, who mostly pass except for Bryan Turner. A bodyguard Suge Knight is also there and offers the group his services. NWA records their album "Straight Outta Compton". But when they have their breaks outside the studio, they get harassed by the LAPD. This inspires Cube to write "Fuck Tha Police". The song goes number one but the FBI warns not to play it. Cube mentions there's something fishy about their contracts with Jerry, to Dre's dismissal. In Detroit NWA plays "Fuck Tha Police" despite prior warning, making them get arrested and rioting ensues.
Jerry gives a contract to Cube but Cube smells something wrong and refuses to sign it and ends up leaving Ruthless Records. He ends up with Turner's Priority Records in 1990, scoring a hit debut solo album. He goes on a lyric battle with the rest of NWA over their songs. Meanwhile Suge Knight now changed careers to managing talents and tries recruiting Dre. Meanwhile the Rodney King case takes place. Dre talks to E about Jerry's misgivings but E still believes Jerry, making Dre leaves and joins Suge to form Death Row Records. Suge beats E into releasing Dre from contract. Death Row soon has artists like Snoop Dogg. Suge's violence starts to irritate Dre. On April 1992 The Rodney King case has its verdict deeming the LAPD not guilty, triggering the LA riots. In 1993 E starts to have money issues while Cube gets successful in the movies and Dre's album is a hit. E's girl shows him Jerry's misgivings. E meets Cube at a club and they forget their beef. Cube agrees on NWA reunion but without Jerry. E starts to look sick. E soon fires Jerry, and soon meets Ren and Yella to work on a NWA reunion project. But E suddenly faints and doctors deems him HIV+ and has only about six months. E goes public with his disease. Dre visits E who's now in a coma. Cube also comes but refuses to see E like that. E dies at 31 years old.
As a biopic movie of one of the most influential groups, particularly to the black community and culture in the US, the story is really tightly knit and solid. The movie creators did well in not minding the duration to go through more than two hours in exchange for a solid story presented. It's also quite well executed, developing the movie's start and end points well without having to be vague and still within a reasonable duration time frame.
Yet I admit I was rather disappointed to see that the movie wasn't really like what I expected. Having seen Boyz n the Hood (1991) a few months back, I was expecting more depictions of the real life in the Hood down in South Central LA. The movie is like that for only the mere beginning sequences. For me it would have been nicer if the movie gets back to this location and mood fro time to time, like when T dies. The fact is the movie changes into a mix of Empire and some other band movies altogether.
It's quite nice to see how the movie finds look-a-likes and insert them to put more legitimacy to the entire depiction of the true story. The mood was really well placed with the younger Snoop Dogg and Tupac. But it's also a double edged blade since Corey Hawkins' face looks nowhere like Dr. Dre's. Ice Cube's character gets even better since it's being played by Cube's own son.
The acting overall is quite good. As a newcomer Corey Hawkins did a decent job in depicting the emotions of the iconic figure in Dr. Dre. O'Shea Jackson Jr. did well in acting out his father's life. But I really doubt that he can act other parts well enough with this level of performance. I think he nailed being Ice Cube here because he's Cube's own son who lived with him all these years and got to know the person quite so much inside out including his mannerisms. Jason Mitchell did quite well in providing he other angle in E's character. Paul Giamatti completed the required character angle that has significance.
My view for Straight Outta Compton (2015) is a score of 7 out of 10. It's really entertaining with a solid and tight story based on actual events. A recommendation goes out especially to you who are exposed to the culture. I don't think the movie can get much acceptance in communities rarely touched by the culture, though.