'Straight Outta Compton' Reviews Slam Overly-Long Sputtering Film That Leaves Out Group's Hate Speech

Following-up up from yesterday, "Ice Cube on Charges of Racism, Anti-Semitism: 'That's not who I'm about ... you can't discriminate...' (VIDEO)."

It turns out that the flick's getting so-so reviews. Mostly, the films starts out strong, then sputters with plodding scenes of the band's infighting and black-ho "bacchanalia." Kenneth Turan, at the Los Angeles Times, is particularly bored by it, "NWA film 'Straight Outta Compton' starts fast but runs out of gas."

Joe Morgenstern's underwhelmed as well, at the Wall Street Journal, "‘Straight Outta Compton’ Review: Hip-Hop History With Attitude":

“Straight Outta Compton” celebrates N.W.A. as poster men for free speech in their perennial disputes with would-be censors. That’s an appropriate part of the equation, but the movie declines to discuss the group’s hate speech—the violence, misogyny, antigay views and scattershot racism that pervade its songs. (Anti-Semitism comes up only because Heller is outraged by Ice Cube’s attacks on him, as well as on N.W.A., the rapper’s former group, in his notorious song “No Vaseline.”)

Only Manohla Dargis, at the New York Times, of the three major reviews I've read, eschews serious criticism. See, "Review: In ‘Straight Outta Compton,’ Upstarts Who Became the Establishment."