Straight Outta Compton (2015)

USA
directed by: F. Gary Gray
written by: Andrea Berloff, Jonathan Herman
starring: Jason Mitchell, Corey Hawkins, O'Shea Jackson Jr.
seen: 4th September, 2017

Lets say I wouldn't mind that the film basicaly presents a fictional version of the band if it was honest in its message and stern in its film (art) erudice. And that it's not.

The prologue was extremely intriguing, but the film slowly stops instiling confidence and starts disintegrating from within. The film rolls in a weird kind of schizophrenia and a whole bunch of its elements is affected by this. My biggest issue with this is that the film ultimately doesn't know which (or whose) story it wants to tell. Because sometimes (basically in the first half) it looks like an interesting and necessary social-political contribution to the debate that prevails in U.S. to this day and is getting even hotter. I was the happiest for the boys and for the movie when they were doing their music and fighting for their right to do it.

However, this aspect burns out rather quickly and what remains is the most basic of biopics, including all the usual atributes: The manipulation of history and leaving out important people. Some portrayed people's involvement with the production and the subsequent suspicious selection of the events shown (the death of Dre's brother doesn't have much significance to the overall story but it gets prominent space, whereas his mistreatment of girlfriends is "a path the film-makers chose not to follow") . Mixing reverent respect for a fallen friend with deliberate changes to his character to better suit their chosen narrative, weakening and belittling him in the process.

And it's the character of Eazy-E that sets the tempo to this whole creation, he is the first one to be introduced and it's his life's arc that supplements the dramatic arc of the film. (And Jason Mitchell gives by far the best performance of the lot. When he watches the bilboards I'm so moved by his acting that I'm also crying, but the real Eazy-E was more "fuck you" than the shedding tears type, so how am I supposed to feel about that?) And next to his character's journey are these oddly crystal clear promos for Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, culminating in the epilogue and in the videos they chose to include about themselves - it's almost a bit ridiculous.

There is not too much to say about film craft, because the film is not trying to find and invent itself formally and stays entirely in the lines of the convention and of the usual. The end falls apart becacuse it's no longer about music and the trio is separated from each other. The film looses its starting ground and the pace stops almost dead. I've only seen the theatrical cut but I cannot imagine how could twenty more minutes sort this mess out, I feel it can only drag more and more, but who knows. The creators had the chance to at least work with the fact that the slowing and breaking of the story is mirroring the bands break-up or the loosening of their relationship, but it seems to me they don't consider the possibilty to work intentionally with the formal side of film-making. And it's the absolute lack of self-reflection and critical distance from the subject that makes the film popular as a product of the entertainment industry and will never allow it to break through in the art circles.