Idlewild Gangsters Club

Here we have the most creative Hip Hop/Rap duo teaming with one of the most creative music video directors on a very good film. I can't believe people aren't seeing this movie...especially black folks. We support some of the most drab and unimaginative crap in music and film but won't support good art. (Maybe it needs more violence or ass shaking in it.)

Anyways, Idlewild has a great story, great music, and highly creative camera work and directing. The acting isn't excellent, but it does not detract from the film. I look forward to seeing more work from Mr. Barber. I wish there were more black filmmakers like him and more music artists like Outkast. Let's move forward people.

What could Outkast do next to top the success of their double cd speakerboxx/love below? The Impresarios of Rap present Idlewild—a hip hop love story set against the daily grind of running a juke joint during Prohibition in the town of Idlewild, GA. All the players were there, the piano player, the singer, and of course, the bootlegger. Whether it's a murder mystery, a gangsta tale, or a love story can be debated after you see it…just go see it.

Idlewild, a film by Bryan Barber starred Antoine Patton and Andre Benjamin. However, the music was done by Big Boi and Andre 3000. Outkast fans will get the difference. The rest will have to see to believe. Let us not forget, where there is a Big Boi and an Andre there will be a fair amount of quirky, a little bit of weird, a lot of imagination, and some stepping outside of the "speakerboxx".

The film had the musical stage appeal of Chicago with the black gangsta love of movies like Harlem Nights and Hoodlum. But unlike those Yankee tales, this story took place in the south before it became dirty or is it derty???? (where's my ebonics dictionary?) It speaks to a time and place accurately and without insult. It was clever and funny but also a little predictable. Which was ideal because the storyline is actually just scenery for all the incredible musical numbers and didn't need to be complicated. The characters had that two-dimensional feel reminiscent of the melodramas so popular in the 1930's. Idlewild rose to the challenge and very successfully captured the times, which is often a difficult task in a period piece.

Saying Outkast has an innovative approach to music is like saying that guy Picasso is alright with a paintbrush. The original score by Outkast blended the sound of the 30's, the jazz, the blues and the swing with rap and soulful rhythm and blues. It was kind of like a family reunion for home-grown syncopation. It was ingenious as well as inspired. The choreography only complimented the musical numbers giving the audience a complete juke joint experience.

The film also offered notable cameo appearances by Cicily Tyson, Ving Rhames, Bruce Bruce, Patty Labelle and the tease of Tony award winning Ben Vereen who doesn't dance. Also noteworthy is Macy Gray's performance as the falling diva Taffy.

If Rappers must make movies, they should all be so good.

Idlewild's greatest fault is that it is really uneven in tone. There were parts of it I really loved – the prologue scenes, and some of the musical numbers, and then parts that just seemed to go splat on the screen. The tone of the beginning, very witty and hell-bent-for-leather, was great and seemed to be a great frame for a story about two hustlers - it seemed reminiscent of the winking, headlong tone of "The Sting" - and if the movie could have maintained that tone it might have been a tour de force. But other parts of the film were morose and uninteresting. Which leads us, unfortunately, to Andre 3000.

I understand making 3000 the Luke Skywalker and Big Boi the Han Solo, but Boi's character of Rooster was so much more interesting a character that whenever he wasn't on the screen the movie just went flat. It just seems to be a bad idea to have a main character who seemingly has no desire to attain his dreams – he's kind of an anti-Joseph-Campbell hero – and the other characters have to shove Percival toward his dreams like corralling a steer to slaughter. His mortician father is supposed to be his obstacle to the life Percival is meant to live, but it seems apathy is a more likely stumbling block; Percival looks more uncomfortable on stage than he does dressing bodies in the funeral home, instead of coming alive when he performs, which seems to be what the character requires.

I liked the music for the most part, but 3000 is the major failing here as well. His persona (it's hard to say that either he or Boi are acting since their characters hew so closely to the personas they have created for OutKast) is such the brooding artist that when the movie needs a shot of "I've finally made it!" razz ma tazz, he's not up to the task and the ending comes away like a lead balloon. I thought that for the most part they did a rather clever job blending the 30's music with the OutKast brand of the hippity hop, and my only complaint here is that Barber directed the music scenes like music videos and so the actors are obviously lip-synching, where a live performance captured for the film might have been exhilarating, here it comes off with the rote polished quality of any hip hop video with the actors seeming to walk through their performances rather than actually performing. The anachronistic quality of the songs isn't as jarring as I thought it might be, it's just the presentation of the music that takes you out of the time and place.

Otherwise, it's shot really well. There are some innovative visual effects that help guide the story, and the dances are staged with such vigor and bawdy realism that they have the gutbucket charm of the early "race" musicals.

The period look of the film is gorgeous; there's a whole lot of production value here - the sets and costumes notorious clotheshorses 3000 and Boi sport made me drool a little, and the ensemble cast is fantastic. It's Depression-Era Black South, but this particular vision seems to be a time and place little explored in cinema. With the exception of a touching scene late in the film in which Rooster, wayward after his long-suffering wife finally leaves him, encounters a religious woman literally at the end of the road, gives her some money and receives a Bible in return, the majority of the movie takes place among the black bourgeoisie and race or class is never an issue. Unfortunately, that touching scene is just an excuse to set up an unbelievably cliché and predictable scene later on when the Bible does what most cinematic Holy Books end up doing).

Overall, the plot is cliché at times and predictable more often than that, and gives the sense of a first-time writer/director finding his way, and there are some scenes that just don't make sense – without spoilering, there's a glaring flaw that happens in the crucial first act that's both sloppy and stylistically cliché storytelling.

The biggest travesty, though is something that didn't hit me until I was on the way home. Ben Vereen is cast as 3000's mortician father, the supposed restraining influence. Toward the end of the movie they have a confrontation, which eventually leads to a reconciliation – I can't possibly be giving anything away by saying that, or you've never seen a movie before. But on the way home it struck me - how do you have Ben Vereen in this movie and not write it into the script to have Ben Vereen DANCING?!? He's BEN VEREEN for crying out loud! Anyone who directs a musical and doesn't see the necessity of having the most talented cast member perform should have their DGA card revoked. All right, I got a little polemical there, but it seems a grievous oversight to overlook one of the film's greatest resources especially when you're supposed to be honoring the past, and this oversight is somehow indicative of the whole project (and now that I look at it, Patti LaBelle never sang in her cameo as the real Angel Davenport, either. Crispity Crunchity! All right, call the DGA, I'm serious, now.).

Idlewild is a movie that attempts some rather ambitious things; it's just a shame it achieved so few.

I had been excited about seeing this movie for months since seeing the trailer. I love musicals and this looked to be really promising. In some ways, it completely lived up to its expectations and in others, it failed miserably. If you are interested in the musical aspect of it, it's brilliant. The dancing is good, the characters incorporate the songs with their personal lives and these scenes are a lot of fun to watch. One of the best production numbers is at the very end. The special effects are fun to watch and the cinematography is very well done. The show gets off to a fun start and the characters look promising. Yet, as they age, something gets lost. The story line between Percival and Angel was the only one I found natural and plausible. Rooster has little interaction with his wife which makes that storyline hard to believe and Trumpy's character comes out of no where and tries, unsuccessfully, to run the show. It was interesting to see the members of Outkast in such different roles, especial Percival. The movie was entertaining and I would sit through the boring parts again any time to see how brilliant the dancing and music was.

We think this movie was just great fun. It is a bit chopped up, but that's a minor problem. Choreography is tight and excellent; music is deleriously hip. Casting and acting was a big plus - stellar performances all around. Cecily Tyson is such a master - adds richness to even the smallest role. Don't agree that we'll see award nominations here though. Directing could have been much much better. The Director failed this exceptional cast - but we're happy that the film was made. We felt like the screenplay could have been written for this cast, and the juxtaposition of rap music over 1930's rhythm worked in a crisp and welcome way. We never tire of those old cars, clothes and styles, but we're grateful for all of this "new" talent and exceptional music. WELL worth the time!