September 4th in Indianapolis, IN. This picture has gotten a lot of hype since its release a few eeks ago. Suffice to say the hype is well deserved. With a 90% rating on Rotten tomatoes, this is a really good film. Veteran director, and former Compton resident, F. Gary Gray does a great job of weaving the history of N.W.A. within in the tapestry of the origins of hip-hop (it was called rap throughout the 80's by the way). The film isn't fast paced per se, but it moves along at a nice pace and flows very well. The real flaw was that the picture has a running time of 2 hours and 24 minutes and could've gone through the editing room one more time. That's not to say that the film was too long or I lost interest, on the contrary, it still would've been just as good about bout 2:05. The actors were near brilliant in their performances. The standouts were O'Shea Jackson, Jr. as Ice Cube, Corey Hawkins as Dr. Dre, Jason Mitchell as Eazy-E and R. Marcos Taylor as Suge Knight.
In most "based on a true story" films the re's usually a little poetic license but from the very little I've seen, there were more omissions than exaggerations. Glaring omissions. The film takes place from 1986 to 1995, from when Dre, Ice Cube and Eazy-E 1st got together, along with Wren and Yella, to Eazy-E's death. Back in the day I always felt that Dre and Cube were the creative force behind N.W.A with Eazy-E being less talented. As it turns out Eazy-E had quite a bit more to do with the group than I thought (the fact that the film was produced by Eazy-E's widow along with Dre and Cube made sure that he got a place in the trinity). After the guys release Eazy-E's single Boyz in the Hood, Eazy-E is approached by Jerry Heller to manage the group. Heller gets them the studio space as they put together the seminal album, Straight Outta Compton and the tour that followed.
Things start to slowly unravel as their album gets more and more popular. Police departments don't like them, the FBI threatens them, Dre's little brother dies and Jerry is seen as a bit of a snake to Cube and Dre. Eventually the strain is too much and the cracks become full blown breaks. Cube leaves over what he feels is mistreatment from Jerry and goes solo, much to the chagrin to the rest of the group. Soon, even Dre becomes disenchanted with Jerry, meets Suge Knight and leaves Ruthless Records to start Death Row with Knight. Things go back and forth between the trifecta (Cube, Dre & E), each dealing with success and failure. Dre and Cube continue a meteoric rise while E struggles with the responsibility of running Ruthless, culminating in a break with Jerry once he learns of how Jerry managed him (a fate that many artists have suffered from). We see Dre working with Snoop Dogg while recording The Chronic, his work with Tupac and his inevitable split with Knight. The three reconcile and there's talk of an N.W.A. reunion but the dream fades when Eazy-E passes away from an AIDS related death.
As I stated before, this was a really good movie that's worth seeing, especially if you're my age. I was around when all this went down (on the East coast) and I knew nothing about West Coast rap. The only LA based rap artist that I knew prior to going to college in 1988 was Ice-T. It was amazing to see the forefront of a genre that didn't really exist and struggled with being taken seriously. Not the case anymore.
N.W.A was also involved (whether directly of indirectly) in a very historical and turbulent time and the film did a very nice job of reminding me of that. The members of N.W.A are seen as hassled by police at any time (I don't know how much of this was true per se but it's pretty much fact that a young black male in the mid to late 80's was considered a gang member and subject to being searched by police) for just being black and young (sadly things don't seemed to have changed all that much). This part of the film was not lost on me and I wanted to mention that.
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