Director Spike Lee’s “Chi-Raq”

The authorities superintendent “isn’t going to be the sole one”, Lee said.

The group marched from a Midtown theater to Times Square.

Chicago actor John Cusack, who appears in the film, said the shootings and killings in Chicago each year are “unacceptable”, and cited political motives. The movie is an adaptation of the ancient Greek comedy Lysistrata.

The outspoken filmmaker said “more heads are gonna roll” as he and “Chi-Raq” cast members prepared to march in an anti-gun violence march after the film’s debut. According to the Chicago Tribune, 2,752 people have been shot this year; last year, there were 2,587 shootings.

Lee was joined by the Rev. Al Sharpton and more than 15 activists. They’re wary of any movie that treats these subjects as a source of any sort of satire, dark or light, purposeful or frivolous. Protesters wore orange hats and pins handed out at theater, which were meant to evoke a hunter’s safety vest, as a sign of solidarity. The humor – the officer sports Confederate flag underwear and mounts his Civil War cannon in a suggestive manner – is painfully clunky, and the setup makes zero sense, even for a multidirectional satire: a Confederate, in Chicago? Huh? It’s a city of “pain, misery and strife”, as our straight-to-the-camera narrator, Dolmedes, played by Samuel L. Jackson, tells us. The film explores ways to stop the bloodshed on city streets. “It doesn’t have to be this way”. Spike Lee’s much-discussed next joint, “Chi-Raq”, will be released this Friday, December 4, courtesy of Amazon Studios – their first in-house feature film, in a deal that involves both Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate (noteworthy, as both have previously teamed up on prestige film fare).

“I was supposed to die, go to jail or get on drugs”, he said.

“It’s telling people there that we do care”, actor Harry Lennix, a native of Chicago and former schoolteacher, told reporters.