Straight Outta Compton

This review may contain spoilers!

A film that starts powerful but slows to a halt in the second half. I would give Straight Outta Compton a 7/10.

The themes that this film deals in are really powerful; the way racism and police brutality as a result of this are upfront in the first act of the film. Beyond this I really think it's important to understand how N.W.A raised themselves up from a place that suffered heavily from poverty and worked at the music; what really makes it's impact is that we are always reminded through these characters that the upbringing in Compton stays with them throughout. The soundtrack for this film is phenomenal, one of the best scenes of the film centred around the performance of 'Fuck The Police'. The cinematography was just another brilliant aspect of the film, with some wild shots that moved in ways that went hand in hand with the style of the film.

O'Shea Jackson Jr, who played Ice Cube, played a character with a lot of intelligence well; as soon as he questioned problems with the money and then worked to right the wrongs against him you came to root for this character in a big way. Jason Mitchell, who played Eazy-E, was a character you almost loved to hate; I think you saw a lot of the wise-cracking as well as bouts of rage that you came to understand the character's mentality and truly empathise for him when he died. Paul Giamatti, who played Jerry Heller, was clearly a sleazy character from the get go; however he was entertaining and I love that they made Giamatti mouth a lot of the lyrics.

However the best performance came from Corey Hawkins, who played Dr. Dre. Hawkins was a rough character from the start but more importantly he played up the importance Dre felt towards music which was essential. You weren't always rooting for Dre but that was intentional with a lot of these characters and Hawkins played Dre in a way that reflected the dual sides of his personality. I think the best performance from Hawkins came when he had to break down after Dre's brother died; that was one of the most genuine performances of the film.

This film needs to take an important lesson in pacing, it baffles me that for a film that started so well how it managed to grind to a pace that almost dragged by the end. The entire second half was pretty poorly constructed; important themes were dropped in favour of Dre's rather over the top plot line about starting his company and also by practically cutting Ice Cube from the film. While Eazy-E's downward spiral was important I think there could have been better ways of treating the Ice Cube And Dr. Dre plots. Furthermore the editing was kind of bland, the sharp cinematography was let down by the rather simple cutting of this film.

Neil Brown Jr, who played Dj Yella, was a character with next to no screen presence for the number of scenes he was in; sometimes you questioned why he had such a major part in the film. R. Marcos Taylor, who played Suge Knight, was an almost comical villain because he felt too fake; his whole performance was just over the top and sinister but without really defining him as a person.