Those of you who know me know that I am the farthest thing from cool that you could ever find. That was primarily why I had reservations about going to see Straight Outta Compton when it was released in theatre’s last year. I don’t need any further evidence that I am not cool, when I try to dance in front of my kids they plead and beg for me to stop.  Attending a movie about African American rappers would do nothing but further cement how uncool I was. Fortunately, I summoned up the courage to attend the movie and was impressed with how well they did making the movie.  Since it was released on DVD yesterday I thought I would give everyone my take on the movie.

NWA was largely an unknown to me as I grew up in one of the whitest of all places in the entire Untied States, Byron Center, Michigan. Sadly, NWA and all the evolution that was Gangsta Rap would have been right in my wheelhouse having been in middle school and high school when it all evolved into the multibillion dollar industry. Unfortunately for me my mom found The Fat Boys Are Back tape that I had purchased from the Meijers on Clyde Park (I actually rode my bike form my house to Meijers which is at least five or six miles one way) and listened to it. The lyrics were not filled with the explicit lyrics or songs depicting violent acts, merely rap about getting tail and laying pipe. It was probably PG-13 in contrast to the stuff NWA was about to put out in the upcoming years, but the content was raunchy enough for me to get a stern lecture and keep me from making anymore bike trips to meijers for rap tapes.

I think my follow up music purchase was Whitney Houston, man was I a loser. Little did I know things were about to get way worse for me in the not so distant future with braces, a mullet, and acne so bad my dad called me pizza face all before I even was able to get my driver’s license. So, the reality of my terribly dorky junior high and high school years is that I primarily listened to classic rock (Tom Petty, Boston, and Foreigner) and had little exposure to Gangsta Rap. Furthermore, once I was free from the clutches of my conservative parents and made my way to college (1992 the precipice of Gangsta Rap) another phenomenon was taking the music world by storm, grunge had taken over the airwaves and Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Alice and Chains were capturing the young white middle class music consumer. In all reality, even if I had been turned on to Gangsta Rap there was no way I would have even attempted to fit into that type of culture, I wouldn’t have even known where to start trying to be a poser and had I tried I  probably would have been a even more pathetic version of Vanilla Ice, if that’s even possible. That being said here goes:

Fortunately the movie had been out for a couple of weeks and I was at the 3:20 showing on a Monday afternoon so most of the demographic (not middle class 40 year old white males) had either already seen the movie. Had it been opening night I’m pretty sure I would have been looked at like I was from another planet and been disliked almost as much as NWA’s jewish manager (which I will get to in my review) When I got to the theatre there were only two other people in already seated and only a handful of other people came in to the theatre after I had arrived. There was a foursome of grossly overweight individuals who rolled up as my brother got to the theatre and he indicated that they had a handicap plate but they were somehow able to sit in the top row of the theatre despite their handicap, that’s perseverance my friends. Regardless, their only handicap appeared to be eating whatever they could get their hands on.

Typically I wouldn’t mention previews in a movie review but I’ve never really done a movie review so I have to throw something in about the Star Wars preview, it looks fucking awesome. Also, there is another Terintino movie coming out that has some real promise. Ride along 2 may be one of the worst sequels ever produced, and that’s saying a lot because there have been plenty of terrible sequels including but not limited to Dumb and Dumber 2 and Grown ups 2 (probably both in Miller and Jenkins top ten movies of all time). The movie opens with Eric Wright AKA EZ E making a transaction at a drug house that summarily gets raided by the police, he narrowly escapes and the movie hits the ground running. It chronicles the exploits of the various members of NWA before they became NWA and does an effective job of building the back story for their rise to success through hard work and effective marketing.

There is an undertone through the entire movie that the police are horrible racist individuals who are completely corrupt and not to be trusted. This is illustrated through various interactions between the members of NWA and the police as they slowly build their fame. EZ manages to make acquaintances with Jerry Heller https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Heller  when he is picking up albums of their first single that they are selling on their own. He takes them under his wing and manages to get them a record deal and a corresponding national tour.

The film portrays the group members as fairly benign compared to the typical residents of Compton and effectively captures the distrust that some group members have for Jerry and EZ and chronicles how each member dealt with the mistrust and as a result how they were able to make their own fame and fortune apart from NWA. Mid way through the film Sug Knight insets himself into the middle of the Gangsta Rap scene and has a major impact on the further evolution of the wrap industry. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suge_Knight  Eventually things begin to splinter for the remaining members of NWA while those who have broken off from the group are flourishing. There is an attempt to get the band back together at the end conditioned on there being no involvement by Jerry Heller. Ultimately, Dr. Dre makes a shrewd move to distance himself from the record label he spun off from his days with NWA and the rest is history. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Dre

My thoughts after seeing the movie were that it was about a half hour too long and that black people are super fucking cool, so super fucking cool that it is probably difficult for white people to hang out with black people because they have no chance of being that cool. Actually, I think that explains the racial divide in our country, black people, for the most part, are so super fucking cool that no one wants to hang out with them. My other thoughts on the movie are that first of all, things were likely embellished a bit to make it more cinematically pleasing to the audience. Secondly, they did a phenomenal job of casting, while the running joke among white people is often that black people all look the same to them, they really don’t and all the actors who were cast in this movie look exactly like the real life version of the person they are portraying. This aspect of the movie makes it much more legit and adds to its credibility along with the fact that the guys who play these roles are pretty good actors.

Lastly, there is quite a bit of T&A in this movie but it’s primarily black T&A which isn’t my favorite type of T&A and it’s from the early 90’s which makes it even more unappealing. However, the parties depicted in the movie are off the hook and amazing, it makes me think that these guys have an even better lifestyle than athletes. However, you know these guys were bagging some super hot white chicks back in the day and that is my biggest knock on the movie, they need to throw some more of that scantily clad into the movie. I was also going to go into the Rodney King shit but I have to get rolling to luch time hoop so that will have to wait for another day, if ever. But, I will say I was a little too young to have really paid much attention to the whole ordeal, but from what is depicted in the movie the way things went down was complete and utter bullshit. Unfortunately, the rioters weren’t smart enough to go riot in the white neighbor hoods and they destroyed their own neighborhoods. I would say that was a major tactical error on their part. Next time something like that happens I will be the honorary riot coordinator and steer the prospective rioters in the proper direction to make the most impact socially and economically by having them riot in the most advantageous neighborhoods.