Above:
Samuel L. Jackson in Mr. Lee’s new movie.
Photo ©Amazon Studios, 40 Acres and a Mule, Filmworks, and Roadside
Attractions
“Chi-Raq” is one of the more
bizarre mainstream movies I’ve seen in some time. The movie transplants the Greek comedy
“Lysistrata” to the violent streets of twenty-first century Chicago (dubbed
'Chi-Raq' by local rappers due to its intense violence); varies wildly in tone,
switching between social commentary, satire, crass comedy, righteous empowerment,
and heavy tragedy; tackles hot-button issues like gang violence, gun control,
racial disparity, and feminism; and has all the subtlety and delicacy of a
brick to the face.
In other words, “Chi-Raq” is a
Spike Lee joint—and one of the better ones we’ve seen from him recently.
The movie’s journey may be all over the map, but it know what it wants to do,
wears its heart on its sleeve while doing it, and turns out to be pretty fun
along the way.
The film is set on the south
side of Chicago, where a decades-long gang war rages on between the Spartans,
led by Demetrius “Chi-Raq” Dupree (Nick Cannon), and the Trojans, led by
Cyclops (Wesley Snipes). As carnage continues and innocents become caught
in the crossfire, Chi’s girlfriend Lysistrata (Teyonah Parris) devises her own
form of protest: a sex strike. She and the other girlfriends and wives of
the gang members vow to withhold intimacy from their men until peace is
reached. Soon, the strike gains attention, and it isn’t long before all
the women of Chicago join the protest, leading to a worldwide phenomenon of
celibate solidarity, all in the name of peace in the ‘hood.
Part of what makes these
proceedings feel so strange is the stylistic choices Mr. Lee makes to tell the
story. For one thing, most of the dialogue is spoken in verse.
Characters talk to each other in metered, rhyming lines, giving the
back-and-forth between them all an otherworldly cadence, which makes it seem as
if the world of Chi-Raq is not only a lawless territory separate from the
United States, but its own fantastical land entirely. The downside to
this is that it sometimes makes some scenes come off as overlong and
self-indulgent, as if Mr. Lee and co-screenwriter Kevin Willmott just wanted to
show off what they can do. However, the upside to that desire is that it
gives the actors the chance to demonstrate just what they can
do.
By the way, make no mistake:
despite being billed third in the film, Teyonah Parris is the real star of
“Chi-Raq.” She owns the film with supreme confidence and power and
genuine heart and empathy, making you truly believe that the women of Englewood
(and perhaps even the entire world) would follow her into this oath of
celibacy. The “Having the Most Fun” Award, however, goes to Samuel L.
Jackson as Dolmedes, the sharply-dressed one-man Greek chorus who arrives every
so often to give us a rundown of events, make jokes, and generally have a ball.
Like I said before, “Chi-Raq”
tries to take on the biggest hot-button issues of our day, name-checking Sandy Hook,
Eric Garner, Charleston, and much more (one imagines that had this movie come
out a few months later, the writers would have found a way to work in a few
references to Syrian refugees or Planned Parenthood). You would think
this would make the film seem schizophrenic, and at times it does.
However, despite its scattershot approach to spreading its messages, “Chi-Raq”
knows what it wants to say—it’s just that what it wants to say is everything it
can in a limited space.
How it gets these messages across
is a bigger issue. “Chi-Raq” jumps from tone to tone seemingly on a whim,
sometimes in the same scene. A tragic, weighty funeral can become a
platform for John Cusack’s Fr. Mike Corridan to preach about gun violence—made
all the more bizarre by Mr. Cusack affecting the delivery and mannerisms of a
black revival preacher (though this is somewhat mitigated by the fact that the
character is based on a real person—Michael Pfleger, a preacher and activist in
Chicago).
Stranger still is an overplayed
comedy scene where Lysistrata seduces and tricks an army major (David Patrick
Kelly). Not only is the major’s office decorated with Confederate
memorabilia and portraits of members of the Bush administration, but halfway
through the scene he tears away his uniform to reveal a pair of stars-and-bars
undies (in case you weren’t sure whether or not this old white man in a Spike
Lee movie was a racist). I’m uncertain what point Mr. Lee was trying to
make beyond, “The Confederate flag is and always has been a symbol of
oppression,” but whatever it is, it seems to be buried beneath heavy-handed sex
jokes and the sight of a half-naked old man.
Still, out there as it might be,
“Chi-Raq” is completely earnest in its intentions. It’s a strange film,
but it’s stylized enough to create its own unique flavor of cinema, passionate
enough to keep you engaged, and clever enough to make sure you have fun while
watching it. Definitely check this one out.
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