Shooting for the NWA biopic Straight Outta Compton finished this fall, and it’s scheduled for an August release. Considering the groundbreaking group’s acrimonious history – Ice Cube left after one album, while co-founders Eazy-E and Dr Dre later went to war with each other – fans are curious to see how the Los Angeles gangsta group’s story will be portrayed. Following a just-surfaced, fan-shot video of the movie’s trailer from an Ice Cube concert in Sydney, Australia, we know a bit more.
For one thing, it seems likely the group’s controversial manager, Jerry Heller, will have a prominent role. He’s played by Paul Giamatti, one of the only well-known actors in the film, and the real Heller is already worried, threatening “recourse” if the film doesn’t “treat me properly”. He has reason to be wary, considering his bitter relationships with three of the film’s executive producers, Ice Cube, Dr Dre and Tomica Woods-Wright. The first two accused him of not paying them properly in NWA, and Heller had a protracted lawsuit with Woods-Wright, Eazy-E’s widow, following Eazy’s death. Eazy himself was Heller’s greatest champion, and many NWA affiliates stress the now-septuagenarian record company veteran’s importance to NWA’s success.
Will he be vilified in Straight Outta Compton? We’ll see, but he gets a fair shake in the trailer. His words kick it off – “Let me tell you what I see here: A lot of raw talent, swagger, bravado. People are scared of you guys. They think you’re dangerous. But you have a unique voice. The world needs to hear it” – and his first meeting with Eazy is also portrayed. “What’s NWA stand for anyway? No whites allowed?” This is a direct quote from Heller’s 2006 memoir, Ruthless, which seems to indicate that, at the very least, the film’s writers have read it.
In September, I attended filming at the Santa Monica Civic Center, which portrayed a Houston venue where protesters picketed the group and ran over their records with a steamroller. I have also been interviewing NWA members and affiliates for a book. Many of them noted the script’s historical inaccuracies, and at least one plot point in the trailer seems to reflect this. In one scene, the character Nicole Threatt visits Dr Dre in jail; she’s currently Dr Dre’s wife but wasn’t during NWA’s heyday, having married Lakers point guard Sedale Threatt in 1991.
Indeed, like most Hollywood biopics, we can probably expect Straight Outta Compton to be twisted to fit various agendas. But if you can suspend disbelief and deal with some questionable storylines, the film might be pretty good.
