Chi-Raq -C+

Quick Hit: An inventive idea that has some serious humor stumbles, but a movie that was necessary to make.

Have you looked at the recent stats about the city of Chicago? The home of the Cubs, the St. Louis Cardinal’s most serious rival? If you haven’t, this movie will be happy to inform you. After a long, creative opening sequence, you are treated (berated is more like it) to facts about that great city. The ​​death toll there has surpassed the death tolls of the last two American Middle-East involved conflicts. There is no wonder that citizens there have taken to calling the city Chiraq, a term that I’ve heard used here as well.

​Therefore, this is a movie that should be made, almost in as a Public Announcement, because it’s not something that gets enough publicity. Spike Lee should definitely be rewarded for having the courage to tackle such a topic. It’s also great that he did it in such a creative manner. He adapted the story of Lysistrata by Aristophanes.

​Now, for those of you that just went – huh? – allow me to explain. Lysistrata was a Greek comedy written and performed around 411 B.C. It is the story of Lysistrata, who takes it upon herself to end the bloodshed and stubbornness of the Peloponnesian War. She does it by convincing the women to withhold themselves sexually from the men, in order to bring about peace to the land. This ends up causing quite a bit of tension between men and women, one of the first written about accounts of a “Battle of the Sexes”.

Lee takes that premise and sets it into modern 

day Chicago. Instead of warring Greeks, we are being shown the violence between separate gangs that are destroying the city. The imagery is jarring, and the movie, most of which is set in lyrical dialogue, is pleasing to the ear even though the language can be rough and the topics discussed the same. Indeed, the movie even has its own Greek narrator, played with obvious delight by none other than Samuel L. Jackson. Lee also shows he has the power to hold onto an audience even at a moment that is not set to the verse involved. It is a serious, honest-to-God sermon performed by John Cusack. He is preaching to a crowd in the movie, but the angled cuts and repetition of lines make it clear that the sermon is meant for us the audience instead.

There is a lot of humor in this film (as it should be, Lysistrata is a comedy), but for me, a lot of the jokes fell flat. There is one instance specifically involving a Southern general that I think went way past the line of being funny, and instead was uncomfortable. Another part that seemed disrespectful to me instead of funny was the tactic that the government uses to try and remove the women from their base. Really? There are other ways you can play the situation for comedy without disrespecting the women involved, who should be seen as the heroines of the story – not playthings that are mindless.

Overall, the tone is playful, the movie an interesting watch. It’s not a movie that most people would like, but I think it’s one that most should watch.

I’m giving Chi-raq a “C+”.                             
  
For more on this film, check out IMDB.