Synopsis
No peace. No piece.
A modern day adaptation of the ancient Greek play Lysistrata by Aristophanes, set against the backdrop of gang violence in Chicago.
A modern day adaptation of the ancient Greek play Lysistrata by Aristophanes, set against the backdrop of gang violence in Chicago.
Teyonah Parris Nick Cannon Wesley Snipes Angela Bassett Samuel L. Jackson John Cusack Jennifer Hudson David Patrick Kelly D.B. Sweeney Dave Chappelle Steve Harris Harry Lennix Anya Engel-Adams Ebony Joy Erin Allen Kane Michelle Mitchenor La La Anthony Val Warner Sarunas J. Jackson Corey Hendrix William Gines Quincy Griffin Chantley Lorraine Ward M.J. Carey Samuel Robinson Anthony Fitzpatrick Jackie Taylor Gina Breedlove Anthony Chisholm Show All…
시라크, Σάϊ-Ρακ, Чирак, Чі-рак, 芝拉克
clear-eyed, playful & pissed as hell. long, but a long time coming, Spike Lee is always at his best when it's an emergency, and this is a *god damn* emergency.
it's also bigger than guns, leveraging that verrrry real threat into a broader look at the institutional rot that results from chronic maleness. the wild all-over-the-place jazz is to be expected, but Spike can't make this sort of thing without it.
also, Nick Cannon... has talent? this is a lot to take.
it won't matter down the line, but it's thrilling how current CHI-RAQ is. see this movie before you forget who the fuck Ben Carson is.
82/100
Spike Lee at his angriest, wailing a two hour siren in the form of a Hip-Hop musical tragedy based on Lysistrata. It's relentless in its message, but goddammit, this is one of the most vital, essential, blaring pieces of cinema in a long while and it needs to be seen. Like a sportscar, it revs up and flies past convention in the fraction of a second, opening with an overture consisting of Nick Cannon's Pray 4 My City as every verse and lyric flashes onto the screen in bright red bursts. Chi-Raq begins with pissed off, raging clarity and concludes in anguish; a voice only strengthened by the hilarious satirical elements and Lee's knack for sorting through multiple tones and flavors. And of course, the performances are knockouts, with particular highlights being Teyonah Parris' showstopping presence and John Cusack's ferocious sermon told through the lens of a lucid filmmaker. Astounding.
44/100
Admirable in theory, but kind of excruciating to actually sit through. As a musical comedy, it's mostly leaden, despite Parris' appealing turn in the lead (which is offset by Cannon's dull glowering); as a political statement, the kindest thing that can be said is that it's well-intentioned. My instinct regarding the latter is to blame co-screenwriter Kevin Willmott, whose C.S.A.: The Confederate States of America was equally ham-handed, but it's not as if Lee hasn't frequently wielded a bludgeon when a scalpel would be more appropriate. Were Chi-Raq as blisteringly angry and confrontational as, say, Janelle Monáe's protest version of "Hell You Talmbout" (which I can never make it through without weeping), its simplistic approach to a complex problem—"Hey,…
Continually bowled over by Spike Lee's ability to make a movie be anything he wants it to be, he's probably had more purely cinematic ideas over the course of his career than any other director, and a wealth of them ended up here. May belong in the Problem Attic (along with 90% of the rest of his work) in part for the way it fashions a story predicated on women withholding sex from men without ever addressing the concepts of rape or consent, but for me anyway that seems a product of the heightened, even idealized satirical reality in which this takes place. Isiah Whitlock Jr. and Dave Chappelle both make invincible grin-inducing cameos but the real star is, naturally,…
Beat Poetry translated into a 120-minute film about black life, community, and Chiraq.
It can't be denied that this movie is directed by Spike Lee. It has Lee's anger, his artistry, his passion, as well as many of his trademarks throughout, but the lack of subtlety is often apparent, even though he has rarely been known for it.
It doesn't take long for the movie to let you know it won't be your typical film. As I mentioned on the first paragraph, the dialogue is mainly made up of rhyme and is all delivered in a poetic style, so you could say they are speaking words. Sometimes this style works, but for the most part it feels obnoxious since it…
Very much a Spike Lee film: conflicting discourses allowed to collide as the films picks subjects, characters, ideas, stylistic tics, everything Lee thinks might ressonate in his big tapestry. Much like Get on the Bus, Lee's best non-New York film, the space here is a complete abstraction which actually increases the feel of competing ideologies in a race to the finish line that is unreachable. It is more pointed and angry than anything he has done since the much maligned She Hate Me. I will never get why so many of his best stuff gets acused of being messy or ham-fisted given that as often happens he has little interest in conclusions but just allowing those collisions to open up new avenues.
"With Chi-Raq, Spike Lee is vital again. This isn’t to say I agree with all of the movie’s politics or that he’s made a perfect film. What I mean is that he’s once again brought something necessary to the screen in a way that no other director could. This, after many years away, is the return of the artist who gave us School Daze, She’s Gotta Have It, Bamboozled and Do the Right Thing." (Full review here.)
Spike really tapped into how the black experience is consistently framed by many as modern day Greek tragedies due to the way people framed our experience as mythic. How there seems to be a higher power controlling the fates of our adults and children. A movie that shows how the limitations patriotism and forms of rebellion that the status quo created for us to use that can only get us so far. A consistent battle with comedy and radicalism as a weapon to bypass the evangelical control that the rhetoric of Greek legends have thrusted upon our community through flawed forms of policing.
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“She’s a sexual terrorist!”
I’m here for Spike as long as he keeps making movies this immediate, fiery, and experimental. Sure, it doesn’t all work, but there’s more energy and passion here than most twenty-two year olds’ debuts.