Spike Lee’s much-discussed comedy drama Chi-Raq has received strong reviews after being unveiled at a world premiere.
The film, made for Amazon studios, takes its title from a slang name for Chicago, which is a reference to the death toll in the city surpassing that of the American special forces in Iraq.
The Hollywood Reporter’s Todd McCarthy called it “a lively and legitimate way to tackle urgent subject matter that other film-makers have found excuses to avoid”, while Variety’s Justin Chang named it “a sprawling, blistering state-of-the-union address that presents Chicago’s South Side as a cesspool of black-on-black violence.”
The plot is loosely based on Greek comedy Lysistrata and follows women going on a sex strike in an attempt to stop the increasing gun violence in the city. It stars Mad Men’s Teyonah Parris, Samuel L Jackson, Nick Cannon, John Cusack, Angela Bassett and Jennifer Hudson.
Chi-Raq will open for a limited theatrical release before heading to Amazon Prime directly after. It’s the company’s first major film, as the studio starts to compete with Netflix, which released Beasts of No Nation earlier this year and will unveil Adam Sandler’s comedy western The Ridiculous Six next month.
The production caused anger in Chicago, as many residents felt as if the city’s rise in gun crime was being exploited by the controversial film-maker. “I just think [the film is] going to glorify the killing,” said Delphine Cherry, the mother of two children killed in separate shootings. “They don’t care about the killings or our kids. They get glory about watching the pain of the parents.”
Lee believes the film stands as an important wake-up call to a worrying epidemic. “I understand people from Chicago are being very sensitive, but facts are facts,” he told ABC7. “New York City has three times the population, Chicago has more homicides than New York.”
