“Chi Raq”: Fails! Should have succeeded

BY HOWARD MCQUITTER II

On the one hand, Spike Lee puts a spotlight on the serious problem in Black America: staggering murders among African Americans, particularly the young, mainly with young black males being both perpetrator and victim the bulk of the time. On the other hand, “Chi Raq,” the title of his most recent film, too often swings wildly into farce. Lee”'s film is too schizophrenic to be a good movie which obscures what could have been good maybe if he had stuck to keeping “Chi Raq” a drama.

Samuel L. Jackson”'s role as Dolmedes, the “comic” relief, is wasted in farce appearing periodically in the movie at times when the movie should have taken its seriousness in those areas that desperately requires it. Jackson, impeccably dressed in various colored three-piece suits, near the beginning of the movie, in rather sardonic tone, tells the audience: “Welcome to ”˜Chi Raq”', land of pain, misery, and strife!”

Lee”'s principle actress Teyonan Parris (“Dear White People”)  plays Lysistrata, the name is from an ancient Greek writer Aristophanes in 411 B.C. who performed his comedy when she convinced the women of Greece to withhold sex from the men until they ended the Peloponnesian War.… Read the rest ““Chi Raq”: Fails! Should have succeeded”