Straight Outta Compton Review

Straight Outta Compton is a 2015 biographical drama film directed by F. Cary Gray and starring O’Shea Jackson Jr. and Paul Giamatti. It is a typical and way too overrated biopic.

The film follows the rise and fall of the Compton rap group N.W.A. This is such a clichéd and tired biopic that really disappointed me as there is nothing here that rises it above the formula of the genre. But it is most importantly never particularly entertaining and is mostly boring to be honest. Also, the running time is ridiculously long and the movie is overly plotted and filled with too many themes. It tries to show everything which is why that approach was more suited for television and certainly not for a feature movie.

Another thing that bothered me in Straight Outta Compton definitely has to be its statements. It tries to tells us that rappers are artists and I myself refuse to believe that and I found that theme ridiculous. Also, the subject matter is not appealing to me, but has some interesting things about it and the film unfortunately never uses those properly to its advantage.

The character development is okay, but should have been better. Everyone here is fine but I have to say that I liked Jerry the most and especially the relationship between him and the rest of the group as those scenes are the highlights of the film. The performances are also quite good with Jason Mitchell and Paul Giamatti being particularly good.

Straight Outta Compton is well made and solidly directed by F. Cary Gray. But it is most definitely overlong and not that exciting or interesting to follow. It is also not particularly sophisticated and having in mind its somewhat intriguing and relevant subject matter, that is quite problematic for the movie. The songs also did not interest me at all as I do not like this kind of music and they were used too much or they last for too long. The pacing is just awful. The movie starts really fast and the first act is always pretty fast paced, but the second half is awfully slow and dull thus creating a jarring shit in pace and tone as well. I also did not like its emotional scenes. Yes, some of them were fine, but the AIDS drama in the third act is just way too emotional and just went into ridiculously maudlin territory. It has some interesting and dramatic scenes, but for the most part the dialogue and the script is flawed and pretty uninspired. It is an okay film that is not bad, but it is far from good either and is definitely overrated because I did not see anything here that is unique or new, just a basic biopic.