Why Straight Outta Compton is burning up the box office
Incendiary, timely film channels young black men’s outrage in society that oft treats them as criminals
Say what you will about box office underdog Straight Outta Compton: it glosses over the personality defects of its subjects, it turns violent, misogynistic gangbangers into upstanding cultural heroes.
But that doesn’t change the fact that this cinematic rendering of the rise and fall of seminal rap group N.W.A. — N----z Wit’ Attitude — is the most visceral movie of the summer.
One, it should be noted, that’s so effective at channelling the outrage of young black men in a society that treats them as criminals it makes The Avengers and Jurassic World seem like two-dimensional cartoons. And I don’t even like rap music. Sitting in a theatre full of 18- to 40-year-olds, I felt like Grampa Simpson: What is this rap music you speak of?
But the movie won me over, made me care, inspired me to go home and listen to the adrenalized raps of these electrifying upstarts, research their real-life biographies and step outside my myopic notions of what pop music should be.
I didn’t always like what I found. Like the fact one of the film’s heroes, Dr. Dre, is a reputed woman beater with a string of alleged assaults conveniently ignored in the movie (co-produced, not coincidentally, by Dr. Dre). Or that unlike East Coast rappers Public Enemy — with their mandate for social justice — West Coast gangsta rap embraced anarchy and hedonism without a glimmer of responsibility.
But what’s up on the screen? Damn, it’s incendiary, a startling depiction of America’s angry, simmering underclass — the Black Panthers of pop.
Downtrodden and dispossessed, they pull together like a clenched fist, fighting the power with music that smoulders and rhymes that sting.
“Let me tell you what I see here,” says their manager (Paul Giamatti) in what serves as the film’s statement of purpose.
“A lot of raw talent. Swagger. Bravado. People are scared of you, guys. They think you’re dangerous, but the world needs to hear it.”
It’s worth noting that the film’s most galvanizing moment — arguably the most galvanizing moment in any Hollywood film this summer — comes during a concert after surly Detroit cops warn the group not to perform their most notorious song, “F--- the Police.” Big surprise: they do it anyway, inciting a near riot.
The spectre of this violent call to arms, fuelled by a sense of righteous anger, is nothing short of enthralling, a button-pushing tempest in which anything can happen. Which helps explain why this most unlikely of late summer releases has held down the No. 1 spot at the box office three weeks in a row.
It’s real life, in the crosshairs, a bracing alternative to the glut of machine-tooled-superhero sequels pummelling us into submission.
“AWESOME!” yelled the teenager next to me as the audience burst into spontaneous applause over the final credits.
Those wandering out of the movie Ricki and the Flash — about an aging rock star who gets no respect — must be scratching their heads, wondering why their movie generated so little buzz while a biopic about a long defunct rap group is packing them in for every show.
The short answer: timing. And relevance.
From the police battering ram used to destroy Compton, Calif., crack houses to the band’s violent confrontations with industry rival Suge Knight — hip hop’s answer to Buford Pusser — the film proceeds like the bomb-spiked bus in Speed, an exhilarating joyride on the brink of disaster.
“Why did we make those kind of records?” Ice Cube asked Rolling Stone rhetorically. “We were living in the middle of dope-dealing, gangbanging, police brutality, f---in’ Reaganomics, and there was nowhere to escape.”
It may be set in the Rodney King era, but the festering outrage over African-American police shootings in Ferguson, Mo., and other U.S. cities proves that 27 years later, things haven’t changed.
The irony, and the reason Compton is resonating — not only in theatres, but on music charts, where N.W.A.’s reissued albums have reached new heights — has less to do with nostalgia than the fact that, at this moment, there is no overtly rebel- lious strain of music to embody the rage of society’s underclass. Why?
Because musicians in the 2010s aren’t interested in shaking up the status quo. They’re interested in making money. And that includes former N.W.A. members Dr. Dre and Ice Cube.
Dre, on the ropes for his violent behaviour toward women, is now a multimillionaire maker of headphones who topped this year’s Forbes list as the world’s highest -paid musician. Controversy? Not in his playbook. Cube, with his own clothing line and sponsorship deal with Coors Light, is a mass movie star making lame buddy comedies such as Ride Along. Which leaves us with . . . what? Katy Perry’s empowerment anthems? Taylor Swift’s relationship confessionals? The only public figure I can think of who challenges the status quo with the same outraged defiance as N.W.A. in the ’80s is — are you sitting down? — Donald Trump.
His mandate isn’t visionary — money, money, money — but you have to admit, he has the gangsta persona down to a T.
If he would grab a microphone and rap about the plight of inner city youth, he could be N.W.A.’s second coming.
Until then, Straight Outta Compton will have to do.