Chi-Raq (2015)

I really enjoyed the film, but I readily admit that it is probably hit or miss. First, many people don't like satire, African-American satire, the black lives matter movement or Spike Lee's directing style. If you count yourself among any of these groups, you won't find this film entertaining. Stop reading now. Otherwise, here are some really nice features of the film.

1. Teyonah Parris! OMG. She is beautiful inside and out. Her role is challenging. On one hand, her character reveals the very real role of minority women in the modern US civil rights movements. This aspect of the role requires a certain amount seriousness to avoid disrespecting the inspirational work of say Alicia Garza. On the other hand, her character is saving Chicago by withholding sex from her boyfriend (Nick Canon). It's a comedy!

Ms. Parris does an excellent job of balancing these competing aspects of the film. While there is plenty of needless booty slapping, her scenes with Jenifer Hudson and Angela Basset are moving. The explanation of black lives matter movement should be mandatory watching by some republican presidential candidates.

Did I mention that Ms. Parris is beautiful? This movie could spark her career as a Hollywood diva. She reminded me of a young Halle Berry in Boomerang.

2. The supporting actors are great. First and foremost, John Cusack is masterful. He delivers a fiery spirit-filled sermon as a local Catholic pastor. He does great and highlights the multi-cultural aspect BLM by frequently and poignantly invoking the term "us" to describe those affected by violence in Chicago. Second, Samuel L. is hilarious. Whenever the movie seems to get too serious or dull, his lyrics makes you laugh. Angela Basset and Dave Chappelle also have nice bits.

3. The premise is nice. Not only is the film based on a Greek play, it highlights a real movement of similar context in Liberia. For some reason, the real story has been overlooked in the press.

4. You will never watch another feature length film that is wholly in rhyme. That may make you happy, but enjoy the uniqueness.

The movie also had downsides, including: Nick Canon can't act, Jenifer Hudson can't act and there is silly/dull ode to sex-inducing R&B music. However, those issues are forgivable. I would watch this again. I have recommended it to everyone I know.

Fmovies: While the movie touches on many problems that Chicago faces, in my opinion it misses the most important one: THE WAR on DRUGS. You can blame gun shows, the NRA, lack of education, etc, all you want, but the fact of the matter is and will remain that the violence isn't because of guns...the huge incarceration rate is not because of guns...it all stems back to the war on drugs. Guns don't kill people, violent gangs do and they do it because of the money associated with the black market drug trade.

Violence, gangs and turf wars are the direct result of the drug trade. Drug dealers rule the streets because the economic opportunities are terrible in the inner-city and because so much can be made from the drug trade. Poor youth see more opportunity in that criminal world than in going to school.

So will eliminating the war on drugs solve the problem? Probably not, but it would be a big step and do a lot to take the power away from the gangs and it would keep the police from arresting black males in epidemic rates.

I could go on and on about how terrible the War on Drugs is for the black community but this is simply a review and I wanted to convey my disappointment that this is not brought up as a substantial issue.

Spike Lee might be a black man, but he is clearly out of touch with the reality of being black (or black and female) in America. Despite a laudably all-black cast, this movie conveniently ignores the reality that male violence is not women's responsibility to deal with, and black male violence is likewise, not black women's responsibility. Black women already bear much of society's scorn and shame; The black woman is the welfare queen, the irresponsible teen mother, the whore. The idea of black women using their (culturally stereotyped) sexuality to control rates of black male violence (which are presumed to have reached war zone levels in this film despite lowered national crime rates in reality)is patently absurd and would be perceived as a racist move had this film not been made by a black man.

Even without the race element, male violence IS NOT women's responsibility. The conceit that women use their vaginas and sexuality to fix toxic masculinity and the poverty that causes violence and desperation in poor communities of color is absurd and wrong.

Chi-Raq fmovies. Talk is cheap. Just ask anyone who decries the most recent example of gun violence in the news, but is frustrated by the lack of governmental or societal action to prevent future incidents. Or talk with the family and friends of anyone killed by a firearm. Of course, few groups in our society understand the problem better than African Americans, who are twice as likely as whites to be killed by guns. And few cities in the U.S. understand better than Chicago, where rates of shooting deaths are proportionally higher than in New York and L.A., and where there are more mass shootings than any other city in the U.S. In fact, from 2003 to 2011 there were almost as many homicides in Chicago as U.S. Servicemembers killed in Iraq (4267 vs. 4485). Numbers like this have led some to refer to Chicago as Chi-Raq. Legendary director Spike Lee's 2015 film "Chi-Raq" (R, 1:58) builds upon this idea, but it does a lot more than talk.

As a way of calling attention to the high rate of gun violence in the U.S. – and the need for action – Lee has co-written (along with Kevin Willmott), directed and produced a movie that entertains, informs and motivates, using a wider variety of elements than I can ever remember seeing in a major motion picture. The basic story comes from the play "Lysistrata" by the Ancient Greek playwright Aristophanes. The script is street talk, often set to verse in a way that would be familiar to Aristophanes or Shakespeare. Lee makes artistic decisions to use an on-camera narrator (Samuel L. Jackson) and have characters occasionally looking straight into the camera while talking to others, as he mixes drama, humor, eroticism, parody and song-and-dance numbers to deal with the deadly serious issue of inner city gun violence. As confused as all that might sound, this is actually a focused movie with a strong narrative.

In the Englewood neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, two rival gangs, the Spartans and the Trojans, are at war. Sometimes they injure or even kill each other and sometimes innocent bystanders fall victim to the violence. Designer eye patch-wearing gangbanger Cyclops (Wesley Snipes) is the leader of the Trojans, while a rapper called Chi-Raq (Nick Cannon) runs the Spartans. When the young daughter of an Englewood resident named Irene (Jennifer Hudson) is killed by a stray bullet and "nobody saw nothing'", some of the young women in the community take action. Encouraged by an older woman called Miss Helen (Angela Bassett), Chi-Raq's girlfriend, Lysistrata (Teyonah Paris) does some reading and formulates the plan that is inspired by Aristophanes' play (and which actually worked in Liberia in 2003).

Lysistrata gets her friends together with the girlfriends and wives from the rival gang and they all agree to a sex strike in order to force their men to abandon the tragic pattern of gang violence. The film's poster displays the women's motto (mostly) accurately as "No Peace, No Piece". (Although they actually use a different word that starts with "p" in place of the word "piece".) The men aren't happy about being denied physical affection, but they don't take the protest seriouslyÂ… at first. Women throughout the city sign on in solidarity and the sex strike starts spreading well beyond Chicago. Then, to help drive their point home, the Chicago women take over a local Army National Guard arsenal (similar to actions taken by the women in Aristophanes' play). Everyone from the neighborhood priest (J

I'm not from Chicago and have only been there once. But I would be mad if it was my hometown. My comments are directly about the movie and not about Chicago.This movie is simply awful. I just watched it on a DVD someone gave me and they can have it back. After about an hour, I simply gave up. Yes, I know it's based on an ancient Greek play, but the writing sucked and the delivery just bad. Most of the acting was so over the top, it played out like a cartoon. Why was Nick Cannon even in this and as the male star? Still scratching my head! The only saving grace is Teyonah Parris, although I hope this movie doesn't stop her from getting other roles. Yikes!

There is a lot to pick apart here, I could spend a good amount of time discussing why this movie is irritating.

I see a lot of praise from people in the reviews, and that's okay. I get why people would sorta like this, it's a "powerful feminist movie for our time" I see that. Where I cannot jive with this AT ALL is why they took the name Chi-raq. I don't know any people in Chicago who support this movie, the majority think it's goofy and cultural appropriation at it's worst.

The violence problems in Chiraq are not over colors, and women cannot stop it just by "withholding sex". You can say "it's a positive message, it applies to many places". No, not here. Chiraq is a term from that culture, the savages of Chiraq came up with that term when they started breaking homicide records. People there are irritated because Spike Lee heard the name and decided to run with it without doing ANY research into the culture he was completely and utterly misrepresenting. What Spike Lee did it the definition of appropriating, and it's just not right.

Aside from those ethical frustrations, the movie just isn't good. I'm still mind boggled as to why Nick Canon ever got a role in this film. He's not a good actor. The style of Spike Lee's directing has never been a favorite of mine, it's tolerable in here honestly; that was the singularly redeeming aspect of this film. Otherwise, this is a waste of money.