Two months ago Jack, Jodi, and I enjoyed this story of the groundbreaking 1980s hip-hop/rap group N.W.A.--Eazy-E, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre, DJ Yella, and MC Ren--and their lives until the early 90s. O'Shea Jackson Jr. (in his screen debut) plays his father Ice Cube and the kid is good, not to mention his dad's spitting image. Jason Mitchell and Corey Hawkins (new to me and their first major roles) and the more experienced (but still new to me) Neil Brown Jr. and Aldis Hodge play E, Dre, Yella, and Ren, respectively, and they bring a lot of passion to the project. Paul Giamatti's Jerry Heller (the manager) has some similarities to his character in Love & Mercy. And there are about a hundred other players in the 147 minutes run time.
This is director F. Gary Gray's eighth feature (plus a bunch of videos) but the only one I've seen is the excellent The Italian Job (2003). The script is credited to Jonathan Herman (his first) and Andrea Berloff (her second) and story by S. Leigh Savidge (one documentary), Alan Wenkus (one other story credit), and Berloff.
You don't have to love hip-hop or rap to like this, although if you hate the genre, you should probably skip it. We like it well enough, and thought the movie was very good. Rotten Tomatoes' critics at 89% and audiences at 94 agree with us this time. I see it's at one second-run theatre in these parts. Or you can wait until January 19 to get it on DVD.
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