Chi-Raq is the kind of MEGA-STATEMENT in capital letters and blazing with a million kilowatts of electricity and fire that makes Stanley Kramer's message movies from back in the day tame by comparison (and that man laid it on thick), and I should say it's a statement with MANY statements in it. What starts off in Chi-Raq seems to be Lee's take on the gargantuan epidemic of gang violence in Chicago, where it's really more like a war zone with people (and innocents especially from stray bullets) being killed in the thousands.
Right from the start with text on the screen - it almost begins more like a Jean-Luc Godard movie than anything else I can remember seeing in a cineplex, first of all - we learn that there have been more people killed in Chicago from gang violence than have been in Iraq and Afghanistan wars respectively. So what can be done about it? Well, Lee has the idea of using the Aristophenes play Lysistrata, about the sex strike put up by women to stop the Peloponnesian War, as a satire on women using the same tactic stop the gang violence plaguing between (no joke) the Spartans and Trojans (led by Nick Cannon and Wesley Snipes).
This would be enough for a movie. Now, before going forward, I should note that I haven't read the play and went into this pretty fresh. But when you get Spike Lee spouting off about a MESSAGE these days, it has to be in super bold, holy-s***, WTF is going on in the WORLD terms, and it's not just about the gang violence then, oh no no, dear readers. This is about Dylan Roof and Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner and violence in the middle east and in ("Da Republic" of) Brooklyn and basically all over the WORLD, not to mention gender politics (whether or not men are 'entitled' to sex or that women have to give it up, regardless of actual sexual attraction which is sort of brought up but whatever) and also about, on the surface, the sort of "root" causes of gang violence: gentrification, lack of hospitals and education, lack of fathers, lack of mothers, Trauma centers, leadership, barbershop, tool-shop, the list goes on and on and ON.
In other words, Lee is all over the place here, and it would be one thing if there were some things anchoring it all like, say, actual characters with any depth. But these are mouth-pieces (for the most part, Nick Cannon's "Chi-Raq" character, not his real name but you may be fooled till near the end), and they're all mostly played with fire and mega-passion; Angela Basset is probably the highlight for me, but there's also John Cusack as a reverend who, not unlike some other characters, stop the movie to literally PREACH to the audience. Oh, and of course Samuel L. Jackson as DOLAMEDES (that is Dolamite as a Greek Chorus), who, frankly, I could watch an entire film nothing but of him doing that (especially as his performance may include, seriously, a PATTON homage).
At the core there is really clever things to this movie, it's made by someone who (to put it lightly) has attitude to burn and clearly knows how to direct and, hell, Spike Lee may even be a genius to even go this far with it all. But it's actually a bad movie... sort of. It almost transcends ideals of 'good' and 'bad' - it's someone who wants to make a polemic, a musical, a comedy, a tragedy, a satire, a drama, a farce, a fiasco. There are times that the actors are really digging in to deliver the dramatic goods. There are other times where men are holding their groins going 'booty booty booty!' over their blue balls. There's a Confederate guy in an Illinois National Guard building who makes the most WTF moment I've seen all year (not that I wasn't laughing, a lot, though not sure with it or at it). And... did I mention this movie is 90% spoken in verse? That certainly kept me awake!
And yet I still recommend the film, as completely nutty as it is. Lee certainly cares about Chicago - about violence and peace and love and all of that - and instead of having his aim set on one target has a shotgun full of buck-shot to aim at LOTS of things. His actors have talent to burn like he does (the actress who plays Lysistrata, Teyonah Paris, probably has her breakout role here, not unlike Anthony Mackie in Lee's previous train-wreck She Hate Me), and there are certainly a few moments that made me lean forward and take notice. But if you're expecting one of the best films of the year you... may get it. Or absolutely hate it. Or both. It is art, whatever it is.
Right from the start with text on the screen - it almost begins more like a Jean-Luc Godard movie than anything else I can remember seeing in a cineplex, first of all - we learn that there have been more people killed in Chicago from gang violence than have been in Iraq and Afghanistan wars respectively. So what can be done about it? Well, Lee has the idea of using the Aristophenes play Lysistrata, about the sex strike put up by women to stop the Peloponnesian War, as a satire on women using the same tactic stop the gang violence plaguing between (no joke) the Spartans and Trojans (led by Nick Cannon and Wesley Snipes).
This would be enough for a movie. Now, before going forward, I should note that I haven't read the play and went into this pretty fresh. But when you get Spike Lee spouting off about a MESSAGE these days, it has to be in super bold, holy-s***, WTF is going on in the WORLD terms, and it's not just about the gang violence then, oh no no, dear readers. This is about Dylan Roof and Trayvon Martin and Eric Garner and violence in the middle east and in ("Da Republic" of) Brooklyn and basically all over the WORLD, not to mention gender politics (whether or not men are 'entitled' to sex or that women have to give it up, regardless of actual sexual attraction which is sort of brought up but whatever) and also about, on the surface, the sort of "root" causes of gang violence: gentrification, lack of hospitals and education, lack of fathers, lack of mothers, Trauma centers, leadership, barbershop, tool-shop, the list goes on and on and ON.
In other words, Lee is all over the place here, and it would be one thing if there were some things anchoring it all like, say, actual characters with any depth. But these are mouth-pieces (for the most part, Nick Cannon's "Chi-Raq" character, not his real name but you may be fooled till near the end), and they're all mostly played with fire and mega-passion; Angela Basset is probably the highlight for me, but there's also John Cusack as a reverend who, not unlike some other characters, stop the movie to literally PREACH to the audience. Oh, and of course Samuel L. Jackson as DOLAMEDES (that is Dolamite as a Greek Chorus), who, frankly, I could watch an entire film nothing but of him doing that (especially as his performance may include, seriously, a PATTON homage).
At the core there is really clever things to this movie, it's made by someone who (to put it lightly) has attitude to burn and clearly knows how to direct and, hell, Spike Lee may even be a genius to even go this far with it all. But it's actually a bad movie... sort of. It almost transcends ideals of 'good' and 'bad' - it's someone who wants to make a polemic, a musical, a comedy, a tragedy, a satire, a drama, a farce, a fiasco. There are times that the actors are really digging in to deliver the dramatic goods. There are other times where men are holding their groins going 'booty booty booty!' over their blue balls. There's a Confederate guy in an Illinois National Guard building who makes the most WTF moment I've seen all year (not that I wasn't laughing, a lot, though not sure with it or at it). And... did I mention this movie is 90% spoken in verse? That certainly kept me awake!
And yet I still recommend the film, as completely nutty as it is. Lee certainly cares about Chicago - about violence and peace and love and all of that - and instead of having his aim set on one target has a shotgun full of buck-shot to aim at LOTS of things. His actors have talent to burn like he does (the actress who plays Lysistrata, Teyonah Paris, probably has her breakout role here, not unlike Anthony Mackie in Lee's previous train-wreck She Hate Me), and there are certainly a few moments that made me lean forward and take notice. But if you're expecting one of the best films of the year you... may get it. Or absolutely hate it. Or both. It is art, whatever it is.