“Straight Outta Compton,” rising to the top of the box office with its story of gangsta rap’s formative group, N.W.A, plays this weekend at Oak Bluffs’ Strand Theatre and Edgartown’s Entertainment Cinemas. Screening at both the Strand and the Capawock Theater in Vineyard Haven this week, “No Escape” drops a naive American family into the middle of an Asian revolution. Meanwhile, the Martha’s Vineyard Film Center is replaying popular favorites from the summer like “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” “Love & Mercy” and “Best of Enemies” — all reviewed in recent issues of the MVTimes — in a run-up to the Martha’s Vineyard International Film Festival. The festival opens Tuesday, Sept. 8.
It was the mid-’80s when five young men growing up on the dangerous streets of Compton, Calif., south of Los Angeles, formed N.W.A (Niggaz Wit Attitudes). The group popularized gangsta rap, giving voice to a police-bullied African-American segment of the population, and radically changing pop music. The story focuses on three of the group’s musicians. Corey Hawkins plays Dr. Dre, who hatched the idea for the West Coast hip-hop group; O’Shea Jackson Jr. plays Ice Cube, the group’s lyricist — and his own father in real life; Jason Mitchell plays Eazy-E, the drug dealer who finances N.W.A’s venture into recording and becomes its lead singer.
Make no mistake; “Straight Outta Compton,” which is the name of their debut album as well as the movie, offers no nostalgic look back at a long-gone era in the music world. The street violence and police brutality evidenced in the film are all too alive and well, as captured in N.W.A’s breakout hit, “F—k tha Police.” When the group performs the song in a Detroit concert, the police arrest the band and a near-riot occurs in the movie version. In truth, director F. Gary Gray has taken liberties with the truth to make his point about police abuse of the group, which did happen. The band members actually weren’t arrested until they returned to their hotel, and the police asked them for autographs.
Paul Giamatti plays Jerry Heller, the slithery agent who opens doors to success for the group but promises a lot more than he delivers. Heller, who favors Eazy-E, contributes to the group’s eventual breakup through his unscrupulous money management. In addition to outlining the history of this famous music group, “Straight Outta Compton” offers a bird’s-eye view of the wheeling and dealing that goes on in the commercial music world and the tensions that can lead to a group’s breakup.
‘No Escape’ from anti-American revolution
Revolution breaks out as Jack Dwyer (Owen Wilson) arrives with his wife, Annie (Lake Bell), and two daughters in an unidentified Asian country near the Vietnamese border (think Laos or Cambodia). Lucky for them, a scruffy-looking Pierce Brosnan, playing the mysterious Hammond, gives them a ride in his personal taxi to their hotel. Jack has been hired by a water company that is supposed to be helping rebuild this anonymous nation’s infrastructure. He obviously didn’t do his homework, because the company he’s trying to join is exploiting the very people it claims to be helping. As a result, Americans like Jack have targets on their backs once revolution breaks out.
One terrifying event after another keeps the action moving in this thriller. Company reps never show up to greet Jack and his family, and the phones and TV don’t work. Then little Lucy (Sterling Jerins) takes off on her own for the hotel swimming pool. Rebels are systematically killing hotel residents as Jack races to retrieve Lucy. Hammond shows up in the nick of time to aid in the family’s escape. It’s nonstop action, with no time to think about holes in the plot or social issues not addressed. Like a roller coaster, the fun comes in the ride.
“Straight Outta Compton” and “No Escape” play across Island theaters this week. Check page 23 for movie listings, or online at mvtimes.com/a-e/movies/.