Howlin Wolf I respect Lee's passionate polemic, but as a movie, it just didn't work for me... It's far too stylised for my taste. It's hard to be affected by genuine emotion, when almost everything is presented in the manner of a community outreach pageant."Do the Right Thing" still crackles with a freshness and vibrancy - but Chi-Raq sadly plays from the conscience of an old man, falling back upon fables to make a difference... Sorry Spike!

hoosieraep Important commentary on the reality of the inner city. I didn't care for, and just turned off, the nasty scenes with the sexual crudities and the insulting references to some politicians. Broke my heart to see the more tender scenes of broken hearts and broken lives, because that's the reality for many dear souls. May God help them! May we help them!

leonblackwood Review: This movie actually didn't start off to bad but once it started to go down the "ban sex" route, it all got a bit out of hand. Nick Cannon plays rap star Chi-Raq, who is head of the purple-clad gang, the Spartans who have battled against the orange-clad gang, the Trojans, led by Cyclops (Wesley Snipes) for years, in the Southside of Chicago. After Irene's (Jennifer Hudson) 11 year old daughter is murdered on the streets, and Chi-Raq's house is burnt down, his girlfriend, Lysistrata (Teyonah Parris) decides to move in with Miss Helen, for her own safety. The murder of Irene's daughter, touches Lysistrata's heart, and she decides to do something about the street violence, which is taking many of the communities life's. After watching a news bulletin about some ladies in Africa who stopped having sex with men to try and stop the violence, Lysistrata decides to use the same method to stop the violence between the Spartans and Trojans. Once the word spreads around the world to all of the ladies, it causes problems in the government, who try various methods to put a stop to the ladies outcry. After a few months of starving the men from any sexual activity, it finally comes down to Lysistrata and Chi-Raq to put a stop to the feud, even though the Trojans have laid down there guns and decided to take the peace route. Although this movie is classed as a musical, it does have a hidden message which is quite touching and the cast didn't keep on jumping into music numbers, which can be quite annoying after a while. I did find the ending pretty ridiculous, and the speeches from Dolmedes (Samuel L. Jackson) got on my nerves but apart from that, I didn't mind it. It won't be everyone's cup of tea, mainly because the rhyming script and the way that the men speak about women, does go over the top in some of the scenes. As this movie is an adaptation of a Greek play, Lysistrata by Aristophanes, I can't completely blame the outcome on the director but I honestly think that could have been something special, if the project was in the right hands. Watchable!Round-Up: I must admit, I am quite surprised that Spike Lee was able to make this movie with such a low budget, because it is quite big, in terms of scale, and there was some top names in the cast. Personally, I think that it was way too explicit, and that there was other ways of getting the message across. Anyway, Spike Lee movies have really struggled at the box office of late, and with this movie making such a lose in terms of profit, I'm surprised that the studios are still believing in his projects. The Oldboy remake lost about $25million at the box office along with the Miracle of St. Anna, which lost $35million, so he's definitely not a bankable director. This movie was originally supposed to have Kanye West in the lead but his hectic schedule meant that he had to pass on the project. I think his name would have pulled in more of an audience but it still would have struggled to break even. Anyway, I did find this movie to be watchable but it did go down some unnecessary avenues, which spoilt the flow of the film.Budget: $15million Worldwide Gross: $2.7millionI recommend this movie to people who are into their comedy/crime/dramas, starring Nick Cannon, Samuel L. Jackson, Teyonah Parris, Wesley Snipes, Angela Bassett, John Cusack, Jennifer Hudson, David Patrick Kelly, D.B. Sweeney, Dave Chappelle, Steve Harris, Harry Lennix, Roger Guenveur Smith and Isiah Whitlock Jr. 4/10

dmuel I'm a fan of Spike Lee's movies and was expecting to be cajoled into deep thought on today's urban problems by this film. Mr Lee has directed some very good films. Do the Right Thing is still one of my favorites. However, in Chi-raq Mr Lee has taken a highly stylized approach to his subject, and this becomes evident early in the film when every character is speaking in rhyming couplets. This continues nearly unbroken throughout the movie. I must say I found urban poetry in Do the Right Thing, but none in this film. The rhyming began to feel artificial, not conducive to either the mood or the setting, and it quickly wore thin. Additionally, Mr Lee gave the film a strongly burlesque quality, at times extremely so, and this was clearly meant to be comic. The humor was so exaggerated, however, that it seemed ill- suited to the very serious problem it was trying to address: the murder rate of young African-Americans at the hands of other African-Americans in urban America. Some reviewers on IMDb have asserted that Mr Lee failed to address the real problem, the "war on drugs", but the topic of the film is more complicated than simple bad law enforcement policy. Lee gave the film a hard sexually charged theme, focusing on reducing violence through female induced sexual abstinence. But he reduces the focus of responsibility in the broader society to white racism, which is likely partially true but not completely so, and even this aspect of the film is presented as burlesque. The film's principle faults: It is not good drama, it is not good comedy, and it is not a film which provokes much thought on a problem that truly deserves attention.