REVIEW: ‘Straight Outta Compton’ Falls Short of the Greatness Found in My Personal N.W.A. Fan Fiction

Nearly 40 years after hip hop revolutionized the culture, the genre finally has its first Hollywood biopic, and it couldn’t have started with a more interesting subject. The story of N.W.A.’s rise as the voice of gangsta rap is one worthy of the screen— full of interpersonal drama, excess and tragedy. But unfortunately, Straight Outta Compton falls frustratingly short of greatness, thanks to poor casting, weak directorial choices and a script that is nowhere near as good as the N.W.A. script I wrote and have been shopping around Hollywood since 2004.

That isn’t to say that Straight Outta Compton isn’t a reasonably entertaining portrayal, only that it would have benefited greatly from more complex characterizations—like those found in my incredulously unproduced screenplay F*ck The Police. Lightweight screenwriters Jonathan Herman and Andrea Berloff offer only a superficial glance at the rap group–instead of the sweeping fantasia N.W.A. so clearly deserves and would have received, had Universal taken their heads outta their asses and bought my script when they had the chance.

While F. Gary Gray succeeds in creating a visually appealing recreation of the N.W.A.’s early years in South Central L.A., Straight Outta Compton’s 2 hour 27 minute runtime is laughably brief considering the subject matter and is, quite frankly, insulting to the viewer. If my 6.5-hour long screenplay of F*ck The Police didn’t spare any details, one wonders why Straight Outta Compton couldn’t do the same. Oh, wait! I remember why! BECAUSE IT WAS WRITTEN BY A BUNCH OF HACKS WITH NO APPRECIATION FOR HIP HOP OR GREAT FILMMAKING.

To wit, Straight Outta Compton contains so many glaring omissions one doesn’t know whether to blame laziness, incompetence, or both. Sure, the film recounts the controversy surrounding the L.A. riots and the misfortune of Eazy-E’s premature death. But it devotes shockingly little screen time to MC Ren’s solo EP Kizz My Black Azz nor his conversion to Islam in 1993. Paul Giamatti’s performance as flawed svengali Jerry Heller is a major player in the plot, as he rightly should be. But NOWHERE does the film reference to the key contributions of Ruthless Records mixing engineer Donovan Poppleman or his lovely wife, Debra, who once hosted Dre and Ice Cube for dinner in 1986.

The film mentions the contractual dispute that lead to N.W.A.’s breakup, but does not delve into the specific profit percentages that were in dispute. As for the time Dr. Dre was mistaken for a real doctor at a dinner party in 1992 but was too embarrassed to correct anyone before having to fake his way through resetting someone’s broken leg, there aren’t any allusions at all(!).    

Not to beat a dead horse, but no such stones were left unturned in F*ck The Police— a script Universal knows I’ve written (trust me, I delivered it to their offices personally) and yet still refuses to acknowledge despite its clear superiority. One can only hope that Straight Outta Compton’s box office success will interest audiences into learning the whole N.W.A. story, and more specifically reading my series of self-published N.W.A. graphic novels and fan fiction, the latter of which imagines what would have happened to the group had they created an amateur detective agency in 1991 instead of breaking up and starting solo music careers.

2 Out Of 5 Stars

P.S. In the event any Hollywood Big Shots are reading this, I have dozens of biopics written and ready to be produced. Just A Friend: The Biz Markie Story tells the thrilling rise and fall of Hip Hop’s Clown Prince. I also have one about the guy from the Humpty Hump song. There’s less violence in it, but it’s still good.

NED PETRIE is a writer and six-time Canadian Comedy Award Nominee. He is co-creator of the animated series Erik The Pillager (Mondo Media) and Murder House (Blue Ant Media). Ned is also host of The Panel Show, an upcoming pilot for CBC Radio. If you follow him on Twitter, he’ll give you a MILLION BUCKS! (@NedPetrie)