Chi-Raq

Talk about such a disparity between the good intentions and awful execution. There are erroneous problems right from the beginning (aside from the awful rap song), with just about zero nuance in the sexes amidst this sex protest -- men are super horny, but women can control theirs, hurr durr. Along with the completely inconsistent rhyming dialogue, this is a shit-show -- but it's at least shining a light on a dark area, and though it completely fucks it up, it's a somewhat admirable fuck up.

Those who can't handle politics in they movies, stay the hell away. Spike Lee at least had me believing he'd moved a smidgen back towards sanity on the gun issue when he said in a promo that he wasn't fighting against the second amendment. To be impossibly generous, there may be a tad of Truth to that, but you'll have to hold your breath for an hour and a half though a string of neck-snapping agenda reversals, oscillating between profound and infantile, to have the slightest hope of finding ou

Hyped as Spike Lee's return to form, Chi-Raq features all of the problematic aspects of his recent work. In short, it's overlong, tonally uneven, discursive, loud and preachy. Lee claims it's a satire, but the satiric targets are not particularly clear other than the cheap shots taken at politicians and gun owners. Unlike Bamboozled, Chi-Raq feels lazy and opportunistic, like he is triviliasing a fatally serious subject, while the recontextualisation of Lysistrata seems hopelessly misguided.

I really want to like this. I really, really do. Spike's righteous urgency is contagious, and propels even the most juvenile sequences through its gonzo connective logic. Yet Chi-Raq is an evasive satire, masking its anger with puerile humor, and this creates a preposterousness that does damage to its subject and subjects - damage that could be rightfully argued as woefully racialist and exasperatingly sexist. I'm furious, but not in the way Spike wants.

Sometimes this movie is really bad, sometimes it's really good. It's a huge mess. The overarching narrative is loosely strung together and not convincingly edited. No cohesive whole at all. Its fierce intro makes you think the story will have a lot of bite, but we soon learn the story is actually quite goofy and isn't meant to be taken all that seriously (at many points it devolves into pure camp), which kind of clashes with the subject matter.

Imagine, for a second, that this had been made by a white person. Yeah. This is just horrifically cringey and I don't understand the critical acclamation that this was some kind of return to form for Spike Lee (that was, if anything, Black KkKlansman). Rhyming verse and a sex strike solving the murder epidemic in Chicago's South Side comes off as the kind of thing dreamed up by people who love Hamilton. Also thought that we were going to get a Jim Jones sideplot when John Cusack was introduced.

This film has some good moments and some weird ones. Not everything works in the script for this movie. The cast does a good job with the material. Overall I would recommend this film.

I'm the rappin' critic and I'm here to say/CHI-RAQ is...um, well--ah, fuck it.

Like many Spike Lee films, CHI-RAQ is inherently messy, but it must be appreciated for its political urgency and creative power. After a strong introduction, Teyonah Parris' activist heroine--who leads a community of women in a sex strike to stop the senseless violence committed by their men--doesn't have a lot of room to grow, but CHI-RAQ still has plenty of interesting detours, plus a brilliant turn by Nick Cannon that anchors the film's plea for peace.

It starts off with annoying pontificating rhymes from Samuel L Jackson & stupid thug rappers. The relentless crappy rhyming dialog was obnoxious & intolerable. It starts out bad & seems to only gets worse. Story points that will never convince anyone. Uneven, lifeless, sexist, racist, preachy, campy & fake. How did they get so many famous actors involved in this train wreck? I was not amused nor entertained. A worthy story, but told so very badly. Spike Lee should retire, this was crap.

The premise of LYSISTRATA--the women of a community going on a sex strike in response to the violence perpetrated by their men--updated to present-day Chicago, with the expected Spike Lee flourishes. Made rapidly (it even references the Charleston shooting), as a consequence it's maddeningly uneven, with the story and characters too often lost amidst the (haphazardly) rhymed dialogue and sloppy editing. Despite this, it has several truly powerful moments, and the performances are mostly strong.

Politically this is just putrid. Also everyone talks like Dr. Seuss for some reason. Probably one of his better visual efforts though, and at some point you gotta admire how unflinchingly dumb this gets.

Extremely stylish, great performances, and the original music is legit fire, but unless you agree with Lee's stance on guns 100%, the political stuff is going to be annoying.

Viewed December 12, 2015.

I oddly liked it. Spike Lee Spike Lee-s out farther than he has in a while but it's in an entertaining way. Incredibly on-the-nose with it's message, especially in some sophomoric scenes, and I can absolutely see how this could come across as obnoxious. Just gut check yourself during the first five minutes.

Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.....I'd let Cusak preach to me any day! OH SNAP!!!

Seen in 2019

i have no identifiable issues with his approach here (lots of complaints elsewhere about its ethical and aesthetic suitability, but i'm pretty dubious about what kind of blandly realistic movie those people would probably make on this subject), but it only intermittently worked for me on an emotional level. i need to see more spike lee though, man.

77.00

Very hit and miss. I thought Parris and Bassett were great, and Cannon won't get the credit he deserves. Most of the other performances were solid if not a bit overdone. I enjoyed the Aristophanes style of writing, but didn't love the music made for the movie. I'm glad I saw it but I doubt I would recommend it to many people.

By all means not just a #BlackLivesMatter statement, but also a powerful piece of playful, myth-making, hood-conscious, pacifist, a-call-to-peace filmmaking. Lee leaves NY only to depict Chicago as this purple and orange city, both colorful and violent, and to bring in a poetic, hip-hop-esque speech about race, gender and street violence. (Also, that "shiiiiiiit" dude from 25th hour is back!)

Here's Spike Lee at his ballsiest. Who else would take Aristophanes' Lysistrata, set in ancient Greece, and prop it up in present-day Englewood, Chicago, where violence is so prevalent the locals call it Chi-Raq, a mash-up of "Chicago" and "Iraq."

I’ve been called a Lee apologist more than once but this is where I draw the line. Most Lee movies are coherent stories with two or three sock puppet scenes, this is about 80% Lee puppetry and 20% rendition after rendition of the (very simple and very silly) premise, so to call over half the movie redundant is bring conservative. Bonus points for the Truly Odd casting of Cusack as an angry black priest.

Teyonah Parris <3

Lost the plot after 45 minutes, also all the political propaganda is way too much.

I don't know what to think about this. Spike Lee doesn't give a fuck about what you think, at least we all know that.

A bit silly in places, but that over-the-top quality seems appropriate to its source material. Ancient Greek plays were nothing if not excessive. Certainly the film is a bit preachy--literally at one point--but it fits well enough into the flow. What I most appreciate here is the vitality and the energy of the whole project. Lee wants the wider world to see a problem with fresh eyes, and he accomplished that while retaining a sense of satirical playfulness necessary to make any of this work.

Clearly a expressive blend of street politics. More respectable for it's intent then the mess of styles it's composed of. Cool things include Teyonah Parris (period!), John Cusack as a preacher and Samuel L. Jackson sort of narrating in pimp style! Nick Cannon tries hard, but when you mainly know him as that pussy cat trying to be funny on TV, it's difficult to take him serious as this hardcore Chicago hoodlum. Spike should have been more clear in the way he wanted to tell this moral tale.

Chi-Raq seems born from an anger that's equally righteous and incredulous, and ends up stumbling on its way between broad satire and furious social commentary. Hilarious at times, preachy as hell at others, but only occasionally enough of both at the same time. Lee's obvious pathos and free-association ranting makes it work, but it's messy work.

Energy to burn. But that's it.