Straight Outta Compton (2015)

Directed by: F. Gary Gary

Written by: Jonathan Herman, Andrea Berloff, S. Leigh Savidge, & Alan Wenkus

Starring: O'Shea Jackson Jr., Corey Hawkins, & Jason Mitchell






Man guys, this film.  This film.

I wanted to see this film since I saw the trailer.  Mostly because I like Dr. Dre and Ice Cube and also because I'm from L.A.

I didn't expect it to be this good.  I mean, I heard it was good before I saw it, but man guys...this film!

Straight Outta Compton is based on Eazy-E and the N.W.A.  It goes through the history of how they first became a part of the music business as well as their hardships through life and with each other.

First, the film is deep...and accurate.  What I liked most about this film is that they used real footage of various events and music that was happening during this time period, the 80's, the 90's and so forth.  They showed footage of Rodney King, the L.A. Riots, interviews, and even the original music videos.  I always love when they do that.  It gives the film a sense of being more meaningful then it is and also it makes it feel more accurate.

The filmmaking was great.  The best shot of the film, in my opinion, was a hospital scene, where it was outside the room, but everything was still in frame.  You couldn't hear the patient, but you could see them through the window and it was heartbreaking.  But no spoilers!

As for the rest of the filmmaking, I pretty much liked everything, except for this one spot.  The whole scene bugged me because of this issue.  Dr. Dre, played by Hawkins, was listening to music on the floor.  Headphones on, record's spinning, it was set up perfectly, but there were sun flares, where there shouldn't be!  Okay, perhaps I'm being nit picky, but a few is fine, but they were all over the right side of the screen.  I'm pretty sure this was in post production and not during production because the way the camera was going (it was circling Hawkins slowly), there were some spots that should not have a sun flare.  It was not in the sun!

I suppose another issue was the actors.  I mean I loved them, and I thought they did great, but there were some spots where you could tell they filmed those scenes first because the acting was not up to par.  Now the three main characters, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, and Eazy-E, were casted greatly of course. But when you look at their film history on IMDB, not much going on.  Hopefully that will change now, but this is the reasoning behind some of their scenes.

Despite my pickiness, because I'm a L.A. girl, I love this film!  It was deep, had some backstabbing, had some love, it was beautiful all around.

Even though the L.A.P.D. doesn't love the film...I do.  Hence, the 5 popcorns.  Go learn some history and watch this film.