Chi-Raq review
Spike Lee’s latest
Chi-Raq
(out of 4) Starring Teyonah Parris, Nick Cannon, Angela Bassett, John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson, Jennifer Hudson and Wesley Snipes. Directed by Spike Lee. 118 minutes. Opening March 18 at TIFF Bell Lightbox. VOD, iTunes same day. 18A
Spike Lee’s Chi-Raq opens with blood-red words, “This is an emergency” and Nick Cannon’s emotive rap “Pray 4 My City.”
Rightfully demanding our attention, yet at times indecisive in storytelling, satirical Chi-Raq uses the sex-strike plot of ancient Greek play Lysistrata — with a sublimely sexy-powerful Teyonah Parris in the title role — as a cry for modern south-side Chicago to break free of the tyranny of gangs and guns.
Lee and screenplay co-writer Kevin Willmott set their contemporized story among rival gangs who go by the names from Aristophanes’s 411 BC play: the Spartans and the Trojans (the latter led by Wesley Snipes’s one-eyed Cyclops).
Lysistrata’s love is Spartan leader-rapper Demetrius/ Chi-Raq (Cannon), whose swaggering club date is interrupted by gunfire. It’s hardly isolated, although the escalating violence comes to their front door with terrifying results, sending Lysistrata to live with her community pacifist neighbour Miss Helen (Angela Bassett). After an 11-year-old girl dies in a drive-by shooting, the latest victim of community violence that seems unending, Helen suggests Lysistrata try an old plan to heal modern woes.
Urged on by Lysistrata, fed-up gangland girlfriends pledge to “lock it up!” with a sex strike, convinced their brand of withholding tax can lead to lasting peace. United by a sassy pledge and the slogan (or the only one we can use here): “No peace, no piece!” the women stand firm and see their protest grow, while the men mope about their lack of “access.”
Inspired by the original structure of the play, the script employs rhyming verse. When it clicks, the words are sly, poetic and timely. Meanwhile, the story swings randomly between laughs and tragedy, including some rousing, costumed production numbers, and that’s occasionally jarring as Lee challenges his audience to keep up. It’s not always worth it: a bizarre takedown of a racist armou- ries commander is just weird.
Lee doesn’t back off from doing what it takes to get us involved, using both satire (thanks in part to Samuel L. Jackson as swaggering one-man Greek chorus Dolmedes) and the tragedy of black-on-black violence.
The latter comes in an incendiary eulogy from John Cusack’s Fr. Mike Corridan — and a stirring performance — as he presides over the funeral of the drive-by shooting victim as her devastated mother (Jennifer Hudson) demands someone be strong enough to name the killer.
Lee returns to engaging, enraged form with Chi-Raq, combining social commentary, anger, humour, dramatics and over-the-top style in a messy mix that uses every trick necessary to put a spotlight on America’s poisonous love affair with guns.