Chi-Raq (2015)
Directed by Spike Lee
A modern day adaptation of the ancient Greek play Lysistrata by Aristophanes, set against the backdrop of gang violence in Chicago.
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What critics compared Chi-Raq to
To find a movie this incendiary, volatile, messy, blunt and urgent, you'd have to go back to "Do the Right Thing," Spike Lee's 1989 seminal race drama that frightened a Cannes film critic so much, she predicted riots would break out all over America if it were to be released.
The film darts hyperactively from its main story—in which Chi-Raq's fed-up girlfriend, Lysistrata (Teyonah Parris), leads an army of Chicago women to protest against black-on-black violence by promoting a vow of abstinence—to hilarious sidebars with one-man Greek chorus Dolmedes (Samuel L. Jackson, riffing on his Do the Right Thing role), to the full-blown church of a fire-and-brimstone-sermonizing John Cusack, to a heist-like sequence in which Lysistrata and her militant sisters occupy a National Guard Armory by honeypotting the racist white veterans who patrol its grounds.
Though it sometimes recalls the irresistibly energetic, genre-bending feel of Lee’s best films – Do The Right Thing in particular – it lacks the assurance and unifying thrust that made those features work so well.
There are also clear echoes of Lee’s own filmography, and if “Chi-Raq” never summons the tension and immediacy of “Do the Right Thing,” it can’t help but recall “She’s Gotta Have It” and “Girl 6” in the way it pivots, morally and dramatically, on the story of a woman’s sexual independence.
Jackson is essentially reprising his role from Do the Right Thing (complete with a refrain of “Wake up!”); also returning to the Lee rep company is Wesley Snipes, as “Cyclops,” leader of one of the story’s warring street gangs.
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964)
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
It’d be hard to fault Chi-Raq for fixating so hard on the battle-of-the-sexes angle and on jokes about the Greek classics (plus Dr. Strangelove, still the standard for putting an Aristophanes-esque sensibility on film), since that’s also true of the source material.
Lysistrata and her women occupy the National Guard Armory by seducing the staff (including David Patrick Kelly's Confederate apologist, General King Kong (a nod to " Dr. Strangelove ") and move the local chapter of a fez-wearing, African-American fraternal organization (led by the great Steve Harris of "The Practice") to lead a counter-protest and plan an insurgency to end what they believe to be an unconscionable dry spell.
In a film crowded with colorful cameos — Wesley Snipes as a one-eyed gangster, Angela Bassett as a community leader and Samuel L. Jackson as a combination of stand-up comedian, street prophet and Greek chorus, just for starters — and loaded up with film-school winks and nods to “Doctor Strangelove” and “Patton” and whatever else I didn’t notice on first viewing, it’s tough for one actor to stand out.
With its wide-ranging political targets and aggressive sense of humor—to say nothing of the bold use of color—Sorry to Bother You recalls some of Spike Lee’s most agitated efforts, Chi-Raq and Bamboozled in particular.
It's like what might happen if David Lynch co-wrote and co-directed a Chi-Raq sequel with Spike Lee.
In fact, great modern musicals aren’t hard to find—for instance, the best movie of 2015, “Chi-Raq,” was a musical.