The Definitive Guide to Living in the Capital , Cairo , Egypt

There is very little connective tissue in F. Gary Gray’s sprawling biopic about one of the most notorious and controversial Gansta’ Rap groups of our time, N.W.A. Written by Jonathan Herman, Andrea Berloff and a handful of other largely untested writers, Straight Outta Compton may not be the most cohesive of biographies, though there’s just enough affective material to draw on to pack a small punch.

The story begins in 1986, where we come to know drug dealer, Eric ‘Eazy-E’ Wright (Mitchell), aspiring DJ, musician and father, Andre ‘Dr Dre’ Young, and hip-hop poet, O’Shea ‘Ice Cube’ Jackson, who – all battling their own struggles – form what becomes N.W.A alongside M.C Ren (Hodge), D.J Yella (Brown Jr.) and The D.O.C (Yates Jr.), with Eazy E’s drug money providing funding. As is so often the case though, fame and success begin to slowly create friction between the members.

Unlike their music – a raw and an explicit depiction of everyday life in the ghetto – Straight Outta Compton feels a little bland in comparison and is almost going through the motions with its story, rarely taking the time to us the larger-than-life moments that could have been better captured. Like so many bipoics, the film seems at a loss as to how to cover so much material in a span of a feature-length film that at 2 hours and 20 minutes is already rather long. As a result the film fails to depict the group’s legacy – it’s a little unfelt.

The performances are quite pedestrian, with the sole exception of O’Shea Jackson Jr.’s brilliant portrayal of his father, while even the surprisingly versatile Giamatti isn’t able to assert his role in the overall plot. Nonetheless, Straight Outta Compton has the intangible sense of nostalgia that’s farther emphasised by its larger-than-life characters. It’s a film that needed to be made. We just wish it would have been made better.