![]() Much of Straight Outta Compton turns on N.W.A.’s relatively swift dissolution, here blamed squarely on their manager, Jerry Heller (Paul Giamatti), whose strategy is divide and conquer. In some ways, making money and boasting about it is their art. They’re something more to flaunt onstage. At the first whiff of a breakthrough, they say, “Let’s go get this money.” The conspicuous consumption and scores of unclothed women are not a by-product of the group’s celebrity. Their wariness and jitters are transmuted by proclaiming their power, they become powerful. Ice Cube (O’Shea Jackson Jr.!) - who supplies all the rhymes - bristles from the start at being shortchanged.īut the chests of these three men - plus DJ Yella (Neil Brown Jr.) and MC Ren (Aldis Hodge) - visibly swell when their music starts coming. (I thought the cops saved the young fool’s life, actually.) Dre (Corey Hawkins) makes the mistake of razzing a Crenshaw Mafia soldier from a bus and gets a pistol cocked in his face. The film opens with a sequence in which dope dealer Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell) challenges a bigger, better-armed group of other dealers - until the LAPD rolls a tank through the side of the house. Nearly every scene centers on intense negotiations for power and dignity. But damage is also done by other black men, who put their own pride on the line in dances of dominance and submission. The cops manhandle and go nose-to-nose with young black men, their attacks a test of manhood to be met with casual defiance, with heads held high. Gary Gray from a shapely, often subtle script by Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff, the film depicts a world that’s a series of confrontations, one swiftly following the next. But Straight Outta Compton aims to cross cultures and sanctify the wisdom of the street - to make a universal underdog story. I know, millions of people didn’t need a biopic to understand that urgency - or need, for that matter, my white-mansplainin’ of the roots of gangsta rap. Ice Cube), and Eazy-E (Eric Wright) and so the meaning, the urgency, at times the necessity of even the most obscene, vainglorious, and incendiary rhymes emerge with thrilling clarity. It’s how the movie makes you see the world through the eyes of Andre Young (a.k.a. It’s the density of detail - along with jagged, hand-held camerawork that evokes a war zone - that renders the trauma universal. It’s not the music itself that puts the film over, although hard-core bangers like “Fuck tha Police” still trigger both your exultation and fight-or-flight response. (as dictated and co-produced by the now-bazillionaire N.W.A.’ers themselves), Straight Outta Compton is among the most potent rags-to-riches showbiz movies ever made. Dre in Suge Knight’s office, a trainer was hiding underneath the table to cue the dog to stand and growl.Photo: Jaimie Trueblood/Universal Pictures The actor running was filmed separate from the dog chasing him. At no point was the dog running after the actor. When the dog runs after Eazy-E, trainers were again at opposite sides of the set, calling the dog to run from point A to point B. ![]() She called the dog to her and he ran from point A to point B, which was outside. When the dog runs through the door closely followed by the swat team, the trainer was outside the backdoor. When the police break down the doors and everyone runs off in the chaos, the dog was not on set for that scene. In the opening scene where we see the dog walk through the room, the trainer used a brownie to have the dog walk from one side of the room to the other. This scene was shot in several takes over one evening. In the opening sequence, we see the pit-bull eating from a bowl, then running through the house when the police break in the doors, then chasing the Eazy-E character outside before the actor jumps over a fence. ![]()
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