![]() ![]() ![]() Jackson and Kevin Spacey, and The Italian Job, with Mark Wahlberg and bunch of Mini Coopers. Gary Gray, a veteran action filmmaker and an unsung pioneer as far as black directors go years ago, he made The Negotiator, with Samuel L. The fact that it’s good shouldn’t be surprising. In other words: The first few minutes of Straight Outta Compton are, unexpectedly, an action movie, and a really good one. It’s a violent scene that doesn’t valorize E’s gangster days. Then it goes wronger when the LAPD shows up and literally knocks down the door, sending Eric Wright scrambling out a window, over a few fences, and into his future as Eazy-E. ![]() It’s a deal between friends-the dialogue is distinctive, precise, even funny-and it goes wrong because of circumstance and desperation, not greed or machismo. This deal isn’t between a good guy and some evil thugs. But when genre movies work, it’s not necessarily because they break the mold it’s because they get the details right. The opening scene is one we’ve all watched a thousand times: The Drug Deal Gone Wrong. Not a good sign.Īnd yet, within minutes, Straight Outta Compton is way more visceral, way more thrilling, way better than its loaded deck would suggest. Dre, Ice Cube and Eazy-E-was produced in part by Dr. Those doubts go through the roof when the subjects of the movie are also its producers, and Straight Outta Compton-the story of N.W.A and the rise of Dr. That’s not a knock on the material, or the talent assembled-it’s just a reasonably skeptical prognosis based upon the history of a genre, the musical biopic, that has always tended toward treacle, oversimplification, and shameless hagiography. Straight Outta Compton has no business being a good movie. ![]()
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