Film review: ‘Straight Outta Compton’

“Straight Outta Compton” is a two-and-a-half hour opus detailing the tumultuous lives of Ice Cube, Dr. Dre and Eazy-E without ever addressing a central mystery: why the name of the band they formed-N.W.A-does not have a terminal period.

In a film where actors were picked mostly for their resemblance to the subjects, O’Shea Jackson Jr. nails it as Ice Cube (he is, after all, his son). As Dr. Dre, Corey Hawkins looks convincing while spinning records but less so when forced into higher emotional registers. Jason Mitchell’s Eazy-E mostly hides behind glasses, a Compton hat and a jheri curl. Paul Giamatti is less fabulously bewigged here than in this summer’s other music biopic (“Love & Mercy”) but he plays his standard role of doughy manipulator as N.W.A’s manager Jerry Heller.

Director F. Gary Gray (the auteur behind the music video for TLC’s “Waterfalls”) splits the picture into intimate scenes shot on handheld cameras and vast set pieces of adoring fans and semi-nude groupies that resemble, well, big budget music videos.

The first half of “Straight Outta Compton” is exciting and relatively tight: the formation of the group, the production of their first LP and their legendary 1989 tour (not to mention the group’s tremendous haberdashery-a timeless and chic array of black ball caps, baggy Dickies and shiny Starter jackets). The second half is an enervating series of scenes about rappers signing or not signing contracts, and the protagonists basing their manliness on who has the biggest house.

Dr. Dre frequently and delightedly fondles wives, girlfriends and other hangers-on but the film never touches on his abuse of women. Gray includes an origin story for Ice Cube’s catchphrase “Bye, Felicia” (from the film “Friday”) that plays for huge laughs and is just as hugely misogynistic. That these acts are unexamined could be related to the fact that Dre and Cube co-produced “Straight Outta Compton.”

The realest sequence in the film begins with Dre developing the indelible beat for “Nuthin But a ‘G’ Thang.” The lyrics “City of Compton / is where it takes place” are belied by the fact that Snoop Dogg first freestyles in the sanitized marble vestibule of a mansion. The scene shows gangsta rap at its height while unwittingly reminding viewers of the inevitable degradation of the genre and the only words on the DJ Shadow track “Why Hip-Hop Sucks in ‘96”: it’s the money.

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“Straight Outta Compton” is showing at the Sonoma 9 Cinemas. Rated R. Running time 2:27. Visit www.cinemawest.com.