Chi-Raq (2015) Spike Lee, Nick Cannon – Movie Review

Set in Chicago’s South Side, there are two warring gangs who’ve been committing violent crimes against each other for years, the purple-clad Spartans and the Trojans, dressed in orange.  Chi-Raq, aka Demetrius Dupree, is the head of the Spartans, and he’s down the eyepatch-sporting Trojan Cyclops and all of his men before his own get taken down.  However, in the gunfire between the two men, an eleven-year old girl is killed by one of their strays, and no one is brave enough to snitch against the person who did it.  Fed up by the cycle of violence that leaves them all as potential victims, the women of the community, led by Chi-Raq’s girlfriend Lysistrata, determine that they’re going to go on a sex strike — ‘no peace, no piece’ —  until the men put down their weapons and work toward peace between them. News spreads like wildfire, making the so-called ‘blue-balls movement’ it a worldwide event, as even women in the sex industry and gay men are refusing to put out until a peace treaty is struck.