Straight Outta Compton

As much as N.W.A. helped to transform hip-hop culture by introducing the sounds of West Coast gangsta rap, the group’s more important legacy might have been social rather than musical. That’s a conclusion theorized by Straight Outta Compton, an epic biopic that sparks to ferocious life more often than it falls victim to watered-down melodrama.

Then again, it’s a fully authorized glimpse into the controversial group’s rapid rise and fall, which helps to explain some of the narrative embellishments and the glossy treatment of its protagonists. And director F. Gary Gray had his breakthrough with Friday and a handful of music videos for Dr. Dre and Ice Cube (whose son plays him in this film). So the whole project has a family-reunion vibe.

Still, the film evocatively captures its setting as it begins in the projects of Compton, Calif., in the late 1980s. That’s when teenagers Cube (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) and Dre (Corey Hawkins) share dreams of stardom that would allow them to escape their crime-ridden neighborhood.

Once they team up with small-time drug dealer Eazy-E (Jason Mitchell), the group’s first mixtape finds a local audience with a couple of hardcore anthems about life on the streets. Nationwide fame quickly follows — with plenty of parties and women — along with the obligatory downfall, which comes when Cube distrusts manager Jerry Heller (Paul Giamatti) and leaves to form a separate label with notorious kingpin Suge Knight (Marcus Taylor) that would later spark the careers of Tupac Shakur and Snoop Dogg.

The rags-to-riches screenplay takes a straightforward and chronological approach, culminating in a well-known tragedy, that doesn’t offer many surprises but still yields some moderate insight into the artistic process and the pitfalls of fame.

For those with an open mind, the slick yet stylish film is provocative with regard to its examination of the group’s role in shaping the pop-culture landscape, and how its members paved the way for urban artists with inflammatory lyrics that reflected their upbringing in a way that was both fresh and fearless. It doesn’t hurt that some of the social issues on their minds, such as police brutality and gang violence, remain relevant today.

So even if the performances are uneven and the film too often feels like a sanctimonious greatest-hits compilation, Straight Outta Compton has vibrant performance sequences and manages to retain the rebellious attitude of these original boys in the ’hood.

Rated R, 146 minutes.