When I was researching Straight Outta Compton, I’ll admit, I had low expectations for this movie. I first looked to IMDb, because they generally have pretty unbiased film reviews. They described the movie as, “The group NWA emerges from the mean streets of Compton in Los Angeles, California, in the mid-1980s and revolutionizes Hip Hop culture with their music and tales about life in the hood.” My mind immediately jumped to oh this is gonna be a gangster movie, glamorizing Ice Cube and Dr. Dre, isn’t it? but I tried to keep an open mind, since the movie scored an 8.2/10.

I searched online for theatres playing the movie near Stillwater, but to my surprise and disappointment, the movie was only playing in a movie theater in Brooklyn park, a 40 minute drive from Stillwater. So I drove there, and when I got in the theater, there were only 2 people in the back. A thought surged through my head, “I should just get out of this theater right now, and not subject myself to two and a half hours of torment,” but then I remembered that the movie came out Aug 14, so I stayed.

And I’m glad I did.

The movie was phenomenal, a real look into what life in the 80’s and 90’s was really like in Compton, California. They stayed true to life and made the movie seem less like some kind of gangster rap film and more like a cinematic documentary. The scenes felt gritty, hard hitting, and definitely felt realistic to what really happened to the NWA. For me, the most hard-hitting point in the movie was when Eazy-E was diagnosed with AIDS, a disease which not only kills 1.2 million people a year, but also was the real killer of Eazy-E, aka Eric Lynn.

For me, the decision the directors took to make most of the scenes accurate to what actually happened in real life is what made the movie stand out.

The movie, considering who it’s about and how much time and money was put into it, did take some cinematic liberties. There was a scene early on where Dr. Dre was in a car chase and was eventually caught and arrested, but in real life, that arrest was because of unpaid parking tickets. Some other important points in the NWA’s history that the movie got wrong were how Jerry Heller came to Eazy-E, but in real life, Eazy-E was the one who sought after Heller to hopefully sign him as his manager. Interestingly enough, in the film, they get harassed by police outside of their studio after they were finished recording in the movie, and apparently that actually happened in real life. Who knew?

I would rate this movie a solid 8 out of 10, only because they did take some liberties to make the movie a bit more cinematic.