Page 31 - ATD 05 DEC,2015

PEOPLE & ARTS A31
Review: Spike Lee’s blistering ‘Chi-Raq’ burns with rage
JAKE COYLE
AP Film Writer
More alive than most of the
year’s films put together,
Spike Lee’s “Chi-Raq” is ur-
gent agitprop that pulsates
with unalloyed rage for the
“self-inflicted genocide”
of South Chicago and ex-
plodes with full-hearted
(and gloriously lewd) pleas
for peace.
It’s wildly uneven but it is
wild. There’s plenty here
to quibble with (the film’s
title prompted outrage in
Chicago), but unassailable
is its passion to bring atten- heavily in stylistic overtures, er grid” being shut down.
tion and compassion to
Chicago’s blood-soaked
streets.
“This is an emergency”
flashes across the screen
early in “Chi-Raq,” a hip-
hop musical and a so-
cial satire that Lee co-
wrote with Kevin Willmott
(“C.S.A.: The Confederate
States of America”) and
sets to the beat of Terence
Blanchard’s score. It’s an
updating of Aristophanes’
ancient Greek comedy
“Lysistrata,” in which Athe-
nian women wage a sex
strike against their warrior
men to end the Pelopon-
nesian War. Lee and Will-
mott have transplanted
the tale to Chicago, where
the murder rate has far
surpassed the number of
Americans killed in Iraq.
Lee is best as a mega-
phone for street-level out-
rage. Whereas most film-
makers gradually ebb in
Review: Al Pacino rascally in Mamet’s flat ‘China Doll’
MARK KENNEDY
AP Drama Writer
NEW YORK (AP) — There’s
no understudy for Al Paci-
no in David Mamet’s new
Broadway play “China
Doll” — and nor could
there be. No one else
could possibly fit into the
main character — a blus-
tery, charming and venal
political mover and shaker
— like Pacino. The part has
been tailored for him like
the snappy three-piece
Georgio Armani suit he
lounges in. And while the
Oscar- and Tony-winner is
impossible to stop watch-
ing — mostly because he
spiritedness as they age,
Lee — in good and not-so-
good films — has remained
uniquely unpredictable
and remarkably prolific.
His last great film, 2006’s
“When the Levees Broke: A
Requiem in Four Acts,” fed
off the fury of New Orleans
residents after Hurricane
Katrina.
“Chi-Raq,” which takes its
title from the controversial
nickname for the violence-
plagued city, is Lee’s most
vital film at least since
then. It’s a farce, wrapped
with maybe a half-dozen
introductions to Chicago
and to “Chi-Raq,” includ-
ing Nick Cannon’s “Pray 4
My City,” played with lyrics
blazed across the screen,
and Samuel Jackson’s pim-
plike narrator, Dolmedes,
who raps, “We can’t take
this much more.”
The story takes a long time
to arrive, and when it does,
it and the characters re-
main secondary to the
overall frenzy of the mov-
ie, all of which is in rhym-
ing verse. Here, Lysistrata
is played by Teyonah
Parris (“Dear White Peo-
ple”). She’s the girlfriend
of Cannon’s gun-toting
gangbanger, also named
Chi-Raq. His gang is the
Spartans, while the Trojans
are led by Wesley Snipes’
Cyclops. Inspired by the
Liberian activist Leymah
Gbowee, Lysistrata orga-
nizes a “total abstinence
Al Pacino appears during a performance in “China Doll” at the
Schoenfeld Theatre in New York.
never leaves the stage and
also because the only oth-
er character is an assistant
Saturday 5 December 2015
This photo provided by Roadside Attractions and Amazon Studios shows Samuel L. Jackson as
Dolmedes in Spike Lee’s film, “Chi-Raq.” The movie opened in U.S. theaters on Dec. 4, 2015.
from knocking the boots” Confederate flag under-
among the women of the pants. John Cusack as the
Spartans and Trojans to Rev. Mike Corridan, who
stop the gang warfare. preaches at a funeral, is
Many scenes aren’t about jarringly bad casting.
strictly advancing the story There’s also a lingering
line but rather deepening feeling that in bringing the
the pain, outrage and ab- gender roles of ancient
surdity. Particularly good is Greece to present-day
Dave Chappelle’s cameo, South Chicago, Lee has
in which he, at a strip club, reduced modern women
frets about “the penis pow- to sex objects (albeit em-
powered ones) and men
Some scenes don’t work, to libido-driven dogs.
particularly a cartoonish But the outrageousness
one with a racist Dixieland — the madness — is the
general (David Patrick point. In Chicago, Lee sees
Kelly), who ends up strad- a seemingly helpless, trag-
dling a Civil War cannon in ic situation and he’s mar-
“China Doll,” which
(JD/JR Associates via AP) opened Thursday at the
Gerald Schoenfeld The-
— the play itself is a mean- atre, is basically a series
dering one-note character of one-sided conversa-
study of a doomed man. tions between Pacino’s
king maker Mickey Ross
and various others in the 1
percent income bracket:
his lawyer, much-younger
lover, hotel employees,
luxury private jet company
officials and other bigwigs.
We meet Ross in a sort of
well-appointed limbo, in a
beautifully furnished, taste- he’s a glib, profane, funny
ful apartment by scenic
designer Derek McLane.
He’s poised to run away
from his dog-eat-dog ex-
(Parrish Lewis/Roadside Attractions/AP)
shalled all of himself — ev-
ery ridiculous rhyme, every
bit of bombast — for a truly
impassioned film. By the
time “Chi-Raq” reaches
its powerful climax, he has
made a sensational, stirring
case for love, not war.
“Chi-Raq,” an Amazon Stu-
dios and Roadside Attrac-
tions release, is rated R by
the Motion Picture Associa-
tion of America for “strong
sexual content includ-
ing dialogue, nudity, lan-
guage, some violence and
drug use.” Running time:
127 minutes. Four stars out
of four.q
istence — “Walking away
with the brass ring and the
pretty girl,” he says — but
his new jet has been im-
pounded. Thus begins an
interminable series of con-
versations about plane tail
numbers, sales tax and jet
registration. Pacino is, at
this point in his career, un-
able to be anything but
Pacino, equal parts “Hoo-
ah!” from “Scent of a Wom-
an” and the satanic figure
in “Devil’s Advocate.”
bully. (But when he talks to
his lady friend, a wonderful
tender, weakness emerg-
es.) q