For a film that begins by presenting a damning social statistic-more Americans have been killed in Chicago in the last decade than in Iraq and Afghanistan combined-Spike Lee's "Chi-Raq" is curiously, but not pointlessly, lighthearted.

When I was 16, my favorite book was "Gone With the Wind." I loved the melodramatic love story between two awful and manipulative people, and the epic portrayal of how the Old South went up in flames. And...