Review: Spike Lee's blistering 'Chi-Raq' burns with rage
More alive than most of the year's films put together, Spike Lee's "Chi-Raq" is urgent agitprop that pulsates with unalloyed rage for the "self-inflicted genocide" of South Chicago and explodes with full-hearted (and gloriously lewd) pleas for peace.
There's plenty here to quibble with (the film's title prompted outrage in Chicago), but unassailable is its passion to bring attention and compassion to Chicago's blood-soaked streets.
Inspired by the Liberian activist Leymah Gbowee, Lysistrata organizes a "total abstinence from knocking the boots" among the women of the Spartans and Trojans to stop the gang warfare.
Some scenes don't work, particularly a cartoonish one with a racist Dixieland general (David Patrick Kelly), who ends up straddling a Civil War cannon in Confederate flag underpants.
There's also a lingering feeling that in bringing the gender roles of ancient Greece to present-day South Chicago, Lee has reduced modern women to sex objects (albeit empowered ones) and men to libido-driven dogs.
Chi-Raq," an Amazon Studios and Roadside Attractions release, is rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America for "strong sexual content including dialogue, nudity, language, some violence and drug use.