Straight Outta Compton Review – AVClub
AVClub: Devil’s bargains, rivalries, decadence, violence, tragedy. The story of N.W.A. is pure opera, but Straight Outta Compton, F. Gary Gray’s fitfully interesting portrayal of the group, only realizes its potential when it applies an exaggerated touch—like, say, setting the swoosh of the Universal logo to the thump-thump-thump of a police helicopter, or staging Dr. Dre’s split with Suge Knight in a smoky red boardroom divided by an open door of blinding light. Aside from these few flourishes of the outré and symbolically charged, there’s little to distinguish the movie from any number of overlong hit-by-hit music biopics of the nodding-approvingly-from-behin d-a-mixing-console variety.
