Gangsta rap pioneers NWA released their first album in 1988, and it shares its title with this juggernaut of a biopic. With songs like F*** tha Police, the group brought the everyday struggles of black youth in LA to international audiences, attracting controversy and acclaim in equal measure. Director F Gary Gray's stroke of genius is to take a wonderfully cheesy, melodramatic rags-to-riches tale and shoot it in the style of an action movie, complete with sex, drugs and violence. It's an undeniably thrilling move. However, the film is produced by NWA members Ice Cube and Dr Dre, which means that the accusations of misogyny and violence that dogged them are emphatically not addressed here. But the young actors playing the rappers are uniformly charismatic, particularly Jason Mitchell as reformed real-life gangster Eazy-E, while the visceral impact of NWA's music is lovingly (and loudly) re-created. And, sadly, the story of black Americans suffering at the hands of a prejudiced police force remains painfully relevant.
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