Chi-raq is Spike Lee鈥檚 urgent call to end the gun violence in Chicago鈥檚 South Side, the resulting deaths of which outnumber the total American casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq. Thus the title.
The meat of the story, however, is based on Aristophanes鈥� famous play Lysistrata, about a woman who seeks to bring about an end to the Peloponnesian War by convincing wives to stop having sex with their husbands, forcing them to negotiate peace.
In Lee鈥檚 film, all sorts of modern culprits are introduced as the root of Chicago鈥檚 gun-violence problem 鈥� middle class apathy, political corruption, police collusion 鈥� but the narrative鈥檚 solution falls back on its centuries-old source material, oiled up with more misogyny and objectification until it glistens. That is the core pitfall of Lee鈥檚 marvelous mess of a film: that he gets us all jacked up about the issue and then offers a quickie solution.
Lysistrata (Teyonah Parris) is a bystander to yet another shooting involving her boyfriend, rapper Chi-raq Dupree (Nick Cannon), and the members of his gang the Spartans. The Trojans (what else?), led by an equally blood-thirsty Cyclops (Wesley Snipes, sporting a bejeweled eye patch and strange giggle), have been battling the Spartans for so long that neither side can remember what started it all.
A visit to a neighbour changes everything. Miss Helen (Angela Bassett) speaks the truth when she says that America likes guns, likes war, and that鈥檚 why there鈥檚 no money for economic development on Chicago鈥檚 South Side when there seems to be plenty for overseas warzones. Together she and Lysistrata devise a plan, modeled after Liberian peace activist Leymah Gbowee, to deprive the men of 鈥渁ll access and entrance鈥� to their wives and girlfriends until the violence stops: 鈥渘o peace, no piece.鈥�
Another great truth-teller is John Cusack as a priest who is tired of burying baby victims of gun violence. He takes pulpit shots at 鈥減oliticians in the pocket of the NRA鈥� and decries mass incarceration as 鈥渢he new Jim Crow.鈥澛燗 parallel plotline involving an 11-year-old鈥檚 grieving mother (Jennifer Hudson) rails against the relatively new no-snitching mentality, even when innocent children are caught in the crossfire. Back in Miss Helen鈥檚 day there were lines that even the toughest gang members did not cross. (Some of the protest scenes are made more poignant by real Chicago mothers carrying placard photographs of their slain children.)
The drama, delivered almost entirely in verse, is spliced with comedy that distracts and occasionally offends: scenes involving a National Guard general mounting a cannon in his stars-and-bars underwear overstays its welcome, for example, and a scene with Oedipus emits more homophobia than is necessary. And though it was interesting to see D.B. Sweeney back on film, his cringe-worthy King Tut sex scene was not.
Serving as Greek chorus is Dolmedes (Samuel L. Jackson) whose philosophy is damning, brilliant and too profane to print. Jackson joins Hudson, Cannon, Bassett and Parris, all of whom give rousing 鈥� in several cases career-best 鈥� performances that get lost in the splatter-art canvas of musical numbers, fiery homilies, worldwide anti-nooky marches and spray-can sermonizing that dilute Lee鈥檚 earnest, urgent message.
Chi-raq opens April 1 at Vancity.
