Spike Lee's Chi-Raq (2015)

[jserraglio]

Watched it last nite on Amazon Prime. This is Spike Lee at his most earthy, impassioned, indignant, and didactic. The satirical narrative is based (more closely than I had expected) on Aristophanes's Lysistrata. Instead of anti-war, read anti-gun and anti-gang. Samuel L Jackson as the stage manager/narrator is alone worth the price of admission, as is as John Cusack's funeral sermon as a South-Side Chicago priest. Angela Bassett turns in a fine cameo performance as the brains behind the women's sex strike: "NoPeace, NoPussy." is their mantra. The movie lost money at the box office. And almost provoked a ban by the city of Chi-raq.