CHI-RAQ OFFERS A GUN CONTROL SOLUTION
When Chi-Raq begins, the screen is covered with slogans shouted anonymously. They complain about safety in Chicago but also paradoxically declare that they love their city. In the first full frame, Chicago’s bodycount during the era of the Iraq War is revealed as far exceeding that of American troops in Iraq, ergo the title. Filmviewers are also told that Blacks do the shooting and dying. Dolmedes (played by Samuel L. Jackson) makes sage comments as if a commentator outside a stage play and returns to the screen from time to time. Then a visit to the “hood,” including graphic demonstration that Blacks have better sex than anyone else. But death of a child from stray bullets is the main incident, serving to mobilize women to re-enact an Aristophanes play. The main protagonist (Teyonah Parris) has the name of the play, Lysistrata. Women announce that the will not have sex until peace returns to the community. But the paradoxes have only begun. For reasons unknown, the same protests occur overseas, from Athens to Tokyo, where gun violence is not a problem. White priest Mike Corridan (John Cusack) attempts a “hood” accent in rousing a Black congregation to action. After a standoff at the Chicago Armory, men turn in their guns (though women have not made that demand) and sign a pledge, but there is no inspection or verification that all have been surrendered. Police refer to protesters as “black and brown” despite the absence of Hispanics. Chicago mayor McCloud (D. B. Sweeney) lacks a clue about problems in the African America community, yet comes around to support the protest and offers, without Black demands, more health infrastructure to Chicago’s south side. Fortune 500 companies reportedly announce that they will hire everyone without a job. Much of director Spike Lee’s film, with dialog almost entirely in rap, will be unintelligible to those unfamiliar with the patois. And the sound is so loud that filmviewers must be cautioned to bring ear plugs to a screening. A litany of injustices is presented in the film, but the idea of surrendering guns for cash has already been tried outside Chicago with better results in Argentina and Brazil than in the United States (Baltimore, Boston, Camden, Detroit, Los Angeles, Newark, Oakland, Phoenix, San Francisco, Tucson). MH