Dre (Corey Hawkins) is a visionary virtuoso and nerdy music obsessive who wants to dodge the banality of a desk job and support his new family with something he loves to do, dreaming on a bed of old records, soaking in Roy Ayers' 'Everybody Loves the Sunshine.' Ice Cube (O'Shea Jackson Jr.) is a contemplative introvert writing rhymes about his traumatic experiences with street gangs and the LAPD. We witness the life of Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell) in the drug game during a fast-paced scene in which he is fleeing from a sting operation, complete with a battering ram, giving the viewer a palpable sense of escaping certain death. This is clear from the beginning, as we're introduced to each member's life before rap, differing portraits of young black men looking for a way to escape violence and a severe lack of options. Like rap itself, "Straight Outta Compton" deftly handles contradiction and reconciles opposites. The movie, like the group's music, expresses the totality of the black experience and challenges the notion that rap is all or nothing-that it either has to be all "conscious" or all club-oriented or entirely "gangsta"-and through that, challenges monolithic understandings of blackness. had shows shut down the FBI sent the group a letter chastising them for their track 'Fuck Tha Police') continues via Fox News criticism, respectability-politics rhetoric, and in moments where rap shows are shut down by the authorities, both locally with Young Moose and nationally with Chicago rapper Chief Keef. Riots, capturing its frustration and rebellion, which mirrors recent unrest in Ferguson and here in Baltimore the names Bush and Clinton pop up throughout, strangely echoing our current presidential race as new 2015 renditions of Bush and Clinton jockey for position in the presidential race and the way that hip-hop is scapegoated and literally policed in the film (N.W.A. and the groups they influenced scored the 1992 L.A. Throughout the movie, which has now made more than $100 million, scenes and imagery recall the current local and national news cycle: N.W.A. While it recounts the polarizing (and as recent writing has importantly highlighted, misogynist and abusive) reality rap group's rise to fame in the late '80s and early '90s, it also transcends the members' own experiences and touches on a multitude of topics debated across the country to this day: police brutality, the drug war, friendship, family, gang violence, financial literacy, sexuality, misogyny, "making it," and loyalty. Gary Gray ("Friday," "Set It Off," and "The Italian Job") comes at an important time.
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