Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.0

Chi-Raq Blu-ray Movie Review

Piece and quiet.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman February 4, 2016

Spike Lee and Yip Harburg might not seem to share much in common other than unusual first names, but there’s another kind of interesting connection between the African American filmmaker and the Jewish American lyricist. Most will no doubt recognize the name of Lee, the often provocative auteur who hit the ground running with She's Gotta Have It and who continued to court controversy with a number of subsequent films including School Daze, Do the Right Thing and Malcolm X. Chances are unless you are a lover of stage and/or film musicals, you may not have the same familiarity with Harburg, though he was one of the most influential lyricists of his era, pumping out a long list of classic tunes for both stage and screen that include such timeless masterpieces as “Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?”, the many standards from Finian's Rainbow including “Old Devil Moon”, “How Are Things in Glocca Morra?” and “If This Isn’t Love”, and the lyric for which he won the Academy Award, “Over the Rainbow” from The Wizard of Oz. But despite their obvious differences, Lee and Harburg both share a fairly left leaning, progressive stance on social issues (it’s important to remember the whole racial subtext of Finian’s Rainbow, something that sometimes gets subsumed by the whimsy of the “magical” element of the show), an aspect that unites these two otherwise disparate artists in a kind of general way. More specifically, however, both men share another rather peculiar trait—they both adapted Aristophanes’ legendary comedy Lysistrata, the tale of women who are sick of menfolk always fighting, and who decide to band together to deprive those men of sexual favors until they all calm down. Harburg adapted this provocative source material into the short-lived 1961 musical The Happiest Girl in the World, where Harburg and the creative team took a page out of the approach fostered by Robert Wright and George Forrest, two Broadway writers who had hit the big time adapting classical composers’ music into popular song formats for musicals like Song of Norway (based on the music of Edvard Grieg) and Kismet (based on the music of Alexander Borodin). In this case, The Happiest Girl in the World recycled tunes by French composer Jacques Offenbach, albeit with Harburg’s often extremely playful lyrics attached.

Harburg and the rest of the creative crew behind The Happiest GIrl in the World pretty much kept the original setting and plot of Aristophanes’ original for their musical reboot, but Lee contemporizes the story while also retaining “Greek” elements like a virtual chorus, as well as some character names. In fact the woman who comes up with the whole “no sex until peace” angle is indeed named Lysistrata (Teyonah Parris), though her boyfriend in this version bears the nickname of Chi-raq (Nick Cannon), the same soubriquet that has been applied to the South Side neighborhood of Chicago, since incipient violence often makes it seem like it’s a warzone overseas (i.e., Iraq). The tragic gang killings that have made Chicago a frequent headline in any day’s news cycle are rather viscerally depicted by Lee in a number of ways, including an early scene where little “text cards” appear over dead bodies (see screenshot 8), but probably even more effectively when a young mother named Irene (Jennifer Hudson) stumbles onto a scene where her little seven year old daughter has become the latest victim of gang warfare.

What’s remarkable about Chi-Raq is how Lee rather amazingly manages to tether an unusual, even whimsical, style to what is in essence a rather tragic tale of a neighborhood under assault. This seemingly disjunctive presentation is on display from the first moment, as a rap song detailing the horrors of Chicago’s South Side is accompanied by what amounts to a purely graphic visual element (see screenshot 6). By the time this film’s “chorus” a nattily dressed narrator/commentator named Dolmedes (Samuel L. Jackson), snaps his fingers and “freezes” an audience at a rap concert, it’s obvious that Lee has thrown caution to the wind and is going to offer this story on his own terms, tradition be damned.

Lee’s at times hyperbolic visual sense may actually detract a bit from the underlying sadness of the film’s subject matter, but in arcs like those involving Irene or a somewhat older woman (an effective Angela Bassett) who takes in Lysistrata for a while there’s copious emotional content. Lee’s tendency to push buttons is firmly on display, and some may find his depictions of at least a couple of the white folks in the film on the provocative side (the less said about the Caucasian gentleman wearing Confederate flag underwear while “riding” a cannon, the better). But for a filmmaker who many had insisted had “permanently” lost his way after disappointments like Oldboy, Chi-Raq is an almost startling return to form for Lee.

Chi-Raq Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Chi-Raq is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. Shot digitally with Red Epic cameras, Chi-Raq has a nicely sharp and well detailed image, one that benefits from some unusual production design and costuming choices that offer a nicely varied palette (check out Jackson's suit and tie combo in screenshot 2 for just one example). Lee and cinematographer Matthew Libatique (Noah, Straight Outta Compton) ply two different tacks here, offering an almost verité ambience in and around the South Side neighborhood, while indulging in various bells and whistles (including those aformentioned text cards, graphical elements, and freeze frames) at various times. While generally sharp and well detailed, especially in close-ups, a couple of sequences look at least relatively soft, including a long sequence surrounding a golden bed late in the film. Contrast is strong throughout the presentation, offering support for good to excellent shadow definition even in some very dimly lit scenes. There are no issues with image instability or compression problems.

Chi-Raq Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Chi-Raq's lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track is consistently immersive and often quite forceful, courtesy of the rap and other musical sequences, but also due to the frightening ubiquity of gunshots, many of which will provoke a startle response in unprepared listeners. There's excellent attention paid to discrete placement of ambient environmental effects in both exterior and interior sequences. Dialogue is cleanly presented, and the low end of this track is especially impressive. Fidelity is top notch, and dynamic range extremely wide.

Chi-Raq Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Deleted Scenes (1080p; 16:46)


• Extended Scenes (1080p; 24:07)


• The Making of Chi-Raq (1080p; 4:11) is a pretty short EPK, one that's almost more like an extended trailer.


• "We Gotta Do Better" Music Video (1080p; 3:23)

Chi-Raq Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Spike Lee and his "joint" are back, baby, and Chi-Raq is a rip roaring entertainment virtually every step of the way. What's so remarkable about this film is the unlikely marriage of style and substance. Some may find some of Lee's putative comedy misplaced, but the film packs an undeniable emotional punch and is certainly a provocative rethinking of Aristophanes' still relevant play. Technical merits are first rate and Chi-Raq comes Highly recommended.