Influential Rappers

Straight Outta Compton electrifies in documenting rise of N.W.A.

The impact that the rap group N.W.A. — or, more specifically, its two most famous members, Ice Cube and Dr. Dre — has had on American pop culture is undeniable. Ice Cube is a multi-hyphenate phenomenon, acclaimed for both writing and rapping music and for writing, directing, producing, and acting in both movies and television. Dr. Dre, meanwhile, has shepherded some of the most famous names in hip hop and overseen the multibillion-dollar Beats by Dre.

In other words, there’s plenty of evidence to justify a biopic on how the group and its members got their start. Straight Outta Compton documents how the five original members — Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson Jr.), Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins), Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell), DJ Yella (Neil Brown Jr.), and MC Ren (Aldis Hodge) — went from just trying to survive on the streets of Compton, California, to huge stardom.

Their story is one that includes plenty of controversy, from lyrics that had them being labeled as “gangsta rap” to their not-uncommon treatment by the police, which led to one especially controversial song. As their fame grew, rifts started to appear, abetted by their manager, Jerry Heller (Paul Giamatti), who seemed to care more about the company he and Eazy-E started than the well-being of the group as a whole.

Like the best music films, there’s something kinetic about seeing musical greatness being created in the moment. When Eazy-E first nails the rhythms of “Boyz-n-the-Hood” or Ice Cube spits out the lyrics to “F*** tha Police” shortly after being harassed by some cops, it’s easy to feel the intensity of the moment. All of that comes to head in a concert in Detroit during N.W.A.’s one and only tour as a full group, where you can practically see the electricity crackling.

The symmetry of the police harassment that N.W.A. experienced and the current Black Lives Matter movement is difficult to ignore. That the film is being released at this particular moment in time is both serendipitous and depressing, because it illustrates how little has changed when it comes to the treatment of African-Americans by the authorities. Director F. Gary Gray does a solid job of driving home this point without overplaying it.

There’s a lot of ground to cover, and Gray and writers Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff do their best to give every person and situation their due, perhaps to the film’s detriment. In an effort to show the broad impact the group and its members had, the film sometimes loses its focus. Although you can’t ignore ancillary characters like Suge Knight, Snoop Dogg, and Tupac Shakur, the film’s balloon is punctured a bit when it shifts attention to them.

The casting of the film is ultimately what makes it work as well as it does. Having Ice Cube’s son play him might seem like a no-brainer given how much they look alike, but his performance proves that it was more than mere stunt casting. Hawkins and Mitchell embody the attitude and talent that Dr. Dre and Eazy-E possessed, and they help to lend the film the swagger it needs.

Straight Outta Compton is too long by about 20 to 30 minutes, because the filmmakers tried to stuff every last big event into the film, but it still succeeds in showing the lasting influence N.W.A. had on the rap world and beyond. More important, it makes you care about the people involved, whether you’re a rap fan or not.

The members of the rap group N.W.A. embodied their name with gusto.

Straight Outta Compton movie

Photo by Jaimie Trueblood

The members of the rap group N.W.A. embodied their name with gusto.

Movie Review

Faces of Death returns with modern twist on cult horror film

Dacre Montgomery in Faces of Death

Photo courtesy of of IFC Films

Dacre Montgomery in Faces of Death.

True horror fans will likely be familiar with the 1978 cult film Faces of Death, which purported to be a documentary showing real-life killings in gory detail. It didn’t, of course, but that didn’t stop rumors from continuing to spread for decades. Now, almost 50 years and multiple sequels later, comes a new version of Faces of Death, an actual movie that pays homage to the original in interesting ways.

Margot (Barbie Ferreira) works at a YouTube-like company called Kino as a content moderator, flagging videos that violate the company’s policies. This means her job often involves seeing some truly despicable things from all manner of depraved people. One day, though, she comes across a video that seems a little too real, and after seeing more similar videos, she starts to believe they’re genuine murders.

Going against her company NDA, she starts to investigate the videos on her own, which puts her on the radar of Arthur (Dacre Montgomery), who is actually kidnapping people and killing them on camera through methods seen in the original Faces of Death film. It’s not long before Arthur tracks her down, with a plan to make her one of his next victims.

Written and directed by Daniel Goldhaber (How to Blow Up a Pipeline) and co-written by Isa Mazzei, the film is not so much scary as it is creepy, with the occasional gross-out sequence. The idea of having someone emulate the killings in the cult film is a good idea, and pairing it with the modern-day attention economy - in which content creators go to increasing lengths for clicks - is a clever twist on a concept that other films have done.

The film as a whole is a commentary on how social media and video sharing sites have often decided to prioritize profits over the well-being of their users. Margot is shown allowing videos involving violence and sexual assault to stay on the site while nixing ones depicting how to use Narcan or demonstrating putting on a condom on a banana. Josh (Jermaine Fowler), Margot’s boss, is even explicit in the company mandate that outrageous videos drive views.

While Arthur has the makings of a good villain, there are few attempts to make him seem truly diabolical. His kidnappings often seem more spur-of-the-moment than calculated, and even though he has a well thought-out dungeon at home, the house’s location in the suburbs seems to make him vulnerable to easy discovery. Goldhaber and Mazzei leave more than a few unanswered questions along the way that take away from the intensity of the story.

Ferreira is yet another actor from Euphoria who’s capitalizing on her exposure from that show. She plays Margot’s increasing anxiety well, and when the action ratchets up in the final act, she meets the moment in a satisfying way. Montgomery returns to the vibe he had while playing the evil Billy on Stranger Things, and even though his character doesn’t fully live up to his potential, Montgomery sells his evil for all it’s worth.

The new Faces of Death may not be what some are expecting given the reputation of the previous films, but it’s a solid horror/thriller that uses the brand as a launching pad into something different. It doesn’t make much of a dent in the scare department, but it does give its violence and gore a degree of relevance in today’s often desensitized world.

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Faces of Death is now playing in theaters.

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