Straight Outta Time

Rating: 7/10 (17 August 2015)

All in all, this was a pretty good movie if you can think of it like a high budget VHI biopic. It serves the music very well, and hits most of the high points in the lives and careers of the NWA alumnus. Be forewarned however, quite a bit of artistic license is taken as to how various events developed. So if you are like most people that will be paying to see this in theaters - people that already know all of the beats (pun intended), expect to roll your eyes a couple times.
Regardless, the film does an excellent job of displaying the feel and look of the various periods. For the most part, the movie keeps one riveted throughout. Most acting is quite good, and the fact that the producers didn't feel a need to use older, well known actors (as usually the case with rap oriented movies) goes along way toward keeping you "in the movie" as you watch. The standout acting performance is Giamatti. If in any other movie, he would probably be Oscar nominated.
Straight Outta Compton does have the same problem as the recent Entourage movie...trying to cram too much into two hours. This means there are giant leaps through time that would likely be hard to follow for non-fans. If you haven't watched every Behind the Music doc covering all of these people, you will likely be lost. To compound this, the time period after the NWA album up the end (Dre announcing he's leaving Death Row) is jammed into the last quarter of the movie...and only a few high points are hit. For example, the release of the Chronic was barely even mentioned...and you only see Snoop very briefly. Once again, had I not known the back story, I would have had no idea what was going on at times.
It almost feels as if the movie was written initially to end as soon as the group became commercially successful, and then it was decided to tack another 10 years of history on. For what it's worth, the name of the movie is Straight Outta Compton, so had the movie ended at the point that album was successful, it would have been much better. What you have here is a movie that would have been better off as an HBO mini series with room to breathe...or at least it could have been served up in two parts (sequel). After seeing the movie, I have to wonder if one of these things were not the original intention, and the studio's insecurity about it's potential popularity caused it to be truncated and released as a end of summer flick.
What I'm getting at is that you are probably not going to walk away from this film totally satisfied, but there are some really strong scenes, great use of the music, and solid performances. It's clearly worth seeing at a theater if you are a fan, for what that's worth. Unlike the aforementioned Entourage movie, this one will not tarnish the legacy. What it will do however is make you dig out those old CD's.