Reasons to watch Straight Outta Compton

There's a sameness, a standard arc, to the many movie biopics about musical artists, and you can see the same contours, for the most part, in the dynamic (up to a point) and too long (unfortunately) F. Gary Gray's Straight Outta Compton: the early struggle, no one can imagine that this poor boy/girl will emerge as a musical power, the struggle through the early years playing crappy clubs and dive bars, surprising discovery and breakout, early relationship w/ agent - usually white, often Jewish - which becomes contentious and often ends in the disposal of agent, the success and big concerts, the inevitable struggles w/ fame and the sybaritic lifestyle that ensues - sex, rx, alcohol, ridiculous expenditure on luxuries - trouble w/ family especially the faithful spouse who'd stood by in the early years and is now shunted to the side, and usually some form of hard-earned self-awareness and settling into late-career success and sainthood - apotheosis - and this pretty much describes SOC, which is the biopic of the hip hop group NWA, with particular emphasis on the late leader of the group, Eric Wright/Easy E, and lesser emphasis on Ice Cube and Dr. Dre and their courtship by and eventually war with West Coast rap leader Suge Knight (w/ Paul Giamatti unconvincingly playing their Jewish manager). A few things do set SOC apart: the first pic of this magnitude I know of to focus on the world of hip hop, which makes it an interesting social document, the great portrayal of the many conflicts w/ the police that formed the psyche and musical mentality of the group members - the Ray Charles biopic took on racism in a different way, but this is the most political of any of the biopics I've seen - terrific drug-bust scene opens the film, the untimely and sad death of Easy E at the end, which breaks the narrative model, the ambivalence we feel about the crudity and danger of some of the songs - especially Fuck the Police - in which we can understand why authorities tried to shut down some of these performances but we also understand the context, we see how NWA were telling a story that, back in the 1990s, few outside the black community had heard or understood. Yes, the movie's too long, and yes it's a little hard to follow as the narrative thread spools around several key characters not one only, but worth a look and a listen, even if hip hop is not your genre, maybe especially if it's not.