Ordinarily, I would skip this. I can enjoy movies set in African-American ghettos (Boyz n the Hood, Do the Right Thing) and biopics about musicians whose music doesn't do much for me (Coal Miner's Daughter, Walk the Line), but the godfathers of gangsta rap really didn't interest me. Only claims that it was unfairly passed over at the Oscars sparked my interest, followed by the high praise from the big three rating sites.
About all I knew going in was that N.W.A (that's the correct punctuation), an offensively named group that included later successful solo artists Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, made an early-'90s album with the same title as the movie, its cover showing four guys standing over the camera on the ground, Eazy-E about to shoot it (or having just shot it). Little did I know that they had brought more of a thuggish image to the music scene than ever before, drawing even the FBI's attention. The story documents their rise and, before long, heated breakup.
One complaint I've read pertains to an accent/vernacular rarely used on screen even by Black characters. Having moved from a heavily Black city to a heavily Black neighborhood, I had no trouble understanding a word of it, tho I had to get used to hearing the dated slang adjective "dope." It's almost refreshing to me. If that's not a problem for you either, read on.
A more pressing language concern is that the dialog contains some of the most swearing in cinematic history. It reminds me of The Wolf of Wall Street -- as do the famed criminals spending lots of money on drugs and sex. Prepare for plenty of female full frontal nudity but not so much as a male buttock, because that's how Hollywood rolls oh so often. Fortunately, SOC is not as relentlessly disgusting as TWoWS. Unfortunately, this is partly because it downplays the reported real-life misogyny, especially on Dre's part.
Downplaying or not, the filmmakers don't shy away from admitting that the members of N.W.A were very much human and at least partly running afoul of the law. We're still supposed to see the LAPD as the bad guys, repeatedly looking to arrest them with no more evidence of a crime than their appearances, sometimes trying to provoke them with racial slurs. I take these depictions with a grain of salt. But nobody comes out looking worse than the violently aggressive Suge Knight.
Personally, I could relate to no character more than the main White guy, N.W.A agent Jerry Heller (Paul Giamatti, the only cast member whose name rang a bell). He seems to mean well, but his questionable economic practices becoming gradually apparent are the driving factor in the group breaking up. The real Heller tried to sue the filmmakers, but I still think he doesn't look so bad. I'm more concerned about Ice Cube defending his vengeful lyrics: When you use insults specific to Jews, you insult far more than an individual.
In spite of all this, I gained a little respect for N.W.A as artists. I can believe that their intent was not to glorify gangsta lifestyles but to tell the world what they saw. Some of their lyrics bordered on threats, but I would support their First Amendment protections. Sometimes I even moved to the rhythm.
Nevertheless, SOC can hardly help but become almost as polarizing as the album's genre. For all the good production values that went into it, I couldn't see it replacing any of the 2015 Academy Best Picture nominees without a severe overhaul in Academy membership. (I haven't seen all the acting nominees yet.) Maybe in a weaker year for film overall, it would have made the cut. As for director F. Gary Gray, I liked his The Negotiator better.
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