Chi-Raq

classified 15
Film

Please note: This was screened in Dec 2016

Director
Spike Lee
Cast
Nick Cannon, Teyonah Parris, Wesley Snipes, Angela Bassett, Samuel L. Jackson, John Cusack
Details
127 mins, 2015, USA

This new Spike Lee joint reimagines Aristophanes’ ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata as a dazzling modern-day hip-hop musical in its bold, imaginative and incendiary look at gangland war in Chicago’s South Side.

Chicago, present day, and gang violence is out of control. A cesspool of black-on-black violence, gun worship and macho misogyny, ruled by unbreakable cycles of poverty and oppression. Chi-Raq (Nick Cannon) is the leader of the Spartans and the lover of foxy, feisty Lysistrata (Teyonah Parris). They are at war with rival gang led by Cyclops (Wesley Snipes). But when a young girl is killed in the crossfire, Lysistrata decides to take some radical action. On the advice of her activist neighbour she convinces all the sisters, on both sides of the divide, to take an unconventional stand - to swear off sex with their men until the fighting stops.

At its core, Chi-Raq is deadly serious (more Americans have been murdered in Chicago in the last 15 years than have died in Iraq and Afghanistan combined) yet its scorching social analysis comes thrillingly framed as loud, lurid and sexy entertainment. It may feel as if you’ve stumbled into a hip-hop concert, a spoken-word recital and a gospel-choir performance rolled into one but you’ll leave also feeling like you’ve witnessed a sprawling, blistering and searing social satire on gun violence from one of America’s most important directors.


× Close

Help us make our website work better for you

We use Google Analytics to gather information on how our website is used. This information helps us to make changes to our website that improve the usefulness and overall experience for our visitors. If you would like to help us to make continuous improvements to our website, please allow us to set "first-party" cookies (only readable by us) so that we can distinguish visitors and gain greater insights.

Allow cookies for analytics Deny cookies for analytics