CHI-RAQ directed by Spike Lee, written by Lee and Kevin Willmott, with Teyonah Parris, Nick Cannon and Samuel L. Jackson. A Lionsgate release. 127 minutes. Opens Friday (March 18). See listing. Rating: NNNNN
Spike Lee cant get a break. His new movie about women going on a sex strike to stop gang wars in Chicago has a whole host of haters.
Windy City rappers say he doesnt get the citys hip-hop culture. LGBTQ commentators bemoan the heteronormativity of the premise: Where are all the queers leading the Black Lives Matter movement? Dont they count for something? Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel is apoplectic over what the movie is doing to his citys rep. And black activists ask: Why blame black people when systemic racism is Americas essential?
And my favourite: this pic is sexist.
Heres the goods on the actual movie never mind the flick all these critics wish Lee had made.
Updating Lysistrata, the ancient Greek play by Aristophanes, Lees outrageous, wholly original work opens with the devastating data on gun killings in Chicago. Between 2001 and 2014, there were more homicides in Chicago than Americans killed in both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars from 2003 to 2011.
Lee then cuts to a hip hop club where a performance by Chi-Raq (Nick Cannon), leader of the Spartans gang, is disrupted by gunfire. The next day, when a nine-year-old girl (her mother is played by Jennifer Hudson) becomes the victim of an errant bullet from a vengeful Spartan, the women decide theyve had enough.
Led by Chi-Raqs girlfriend Lysistrata (Teyonah Parris) and her mentor, Miss Helen (Angela Bassett), they give their gangster boyfriends an ultimatum: no peace, no pussy.
And then all hell breaks out narratively and in terms of cinematic form. Turns out, its not just gang members girlfriends interested in the action or non-action. Everyone housewives, sex workers, office employees joins the movement, which eventually spreads worldwide.
The guys are not happy about it.
This is a movie that manages to be both brash and earnest, hilarious and deadly serious, bluntly rhetorical and poetic at the same time.
Leell try anything. There are musical set pieces that resemble videos and a gospel-inspired number at the funeral of the dead child. Except for the eulogy given by a priest (John Cusack), the entire screenplay, co-written by Lee with Kevin Willmott, is written in rhyme. Also honouring the Greek tradition, the piece has a one-man chorus (Samuel L. Jackson) whose wordplay is the most deft and the most profane.
It doesnt all work. Occasionally the soundtrack goes maudlin, the last scene is too tidy, and a sequence where a U.S. general who fetishizes black women is taken hostage by Lysistrata is almost too squirmworthy. But every time something goes off the rails, you know a spectacular idea will get the film back on track.
Its staggering that Chicago rappers worry more about the purity of their genre than the safety of their community. It speaks to exactly the problem Lee wants to address. I honour those queer activists spearheading Black Lives Matter, but Lees got another story to tell, and they arent the central characters in it. And theres no question that the subtext in Chi-Raq is the systemic racism that leads young black men to devalue their lives and the lives of others. The priests eulogy is a profound dissection of racist America and its obsession with guns.
Is it sexist? Lees been giving the power to women in his films since Shes Gotta Have It. Remember that scene in Jungle Fever when women are dishing about their sex lives? Thered never been anything like it before. Here women of all shapes and sizes take back their sexuality literally while staying true to their values and giving solidarity new meaning.
That they do it clad in leather and promoting blue-balls politics makes Chi-Raq all the more outrageous and unique.
See it.
Read our Q&A with Spike Lee here.
susanc@nowtoronto.com | @susangcole
