Like a shotgun blast right from the first scene, “Straight Outta Compton” gets your adrenaline pumping and sends the viewer on a roller coaster ride of emotions right until the last scene. 
You’re laughing, you’re bobbing your head to the beat, you’re cheering, you’re outraged and by the end of it you’re crying. 
This is one of the best movies of the summer and this was a great summer for movies. 
From “Mad Max” to “Jurassic World” we were spoiled with some very entertaining and very well made movies. “Straight Outta Compton” is exactly that: very entertaining and very well made. This film will not be forgotten anytime soon and hopefully will not be ignored come awards season.
This is the biography of N.W.A, a notorious rap group from the mid-eighties that brought credibility to the streets of Los Angeles. Their music was unavoidable and absolutely contagious and with all the current situations still existing in America today, absolutely relevant. N.W.A brought what was happening in their neighborhoods to the public eye and did it in such an infectious way people could not help but be affected by it. Love them or hate them you could not avoid the message they were bringing into your world. They changed American culture, from the way people thought to the way they dressed. N.W.A became a household name and the authorities in charge were trying to shut it down. The change they were bringing was not ready to be embraced by all and thus highlighting the cultural divide. 
With the strength of their words and the backbone to stand behind them, the only way this group could have been brought down was internally and this film shows the rise and fall of one of the original groups to bring gangsta rap to the world. 
“Straight Outta Compton” focuses on three members of the group: Eric “Eazy-E” Wright (Jason Mitchell), a smooth-talking, easy going Compton drug dealer with a mind for business: Ice Cube (O’shea Jackson Jr. — his actual son) a hard-headed, no bullshit, lyricist whose words brought the group into the spotlight: and Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins), a driven and smart artist whose talent brought emotion to the lyrics being blasted through speakers into the world. The camaraderie in this group was smoothing special, something infectious, they were lightning a bottle and when they were put on the world’s stage nothing would be the same afterwards. 
The film is directed by F. Gary Gray (“Friday,” the first movie written by and staring Ice Cube, Italian Job) and he handles the subject matter with the grittiness you would expect from an N.W.A song. It’s raw and in your face and doesn’t shy away from the reality that brought them notoriety. 
You feel where their lyrics are coming from and you see the harshness of what they deal with on a daily basis, from gang members taking over school buses to being degraded by the police just for being black. 
It is the perfect blend of compassion for their situation, anger to bring change, desperation to be heard and a heavy hand to be taken seriously. 
I knew little of N.W.A before I saw this film and to be honest I didn’t much care to dig into their origins but this well-crafted, well-paced film brought a whole new appreciation for what they represent. It is about as good a biopic as I have ever seen, completely entertaining from beginning to end. This movie is worth your $12 on a Friday night.