Idlewild

Had this movie sustained the cinematic brilliance of its first few minutes, there is no question that it would have been something so out of the ordinary as to become an instant classic. As it is, it may have some cross-and-jostle work to establish itself as one of the Movies of the Year to see, but its flashes of original genius strung together with an operatic plot and dynamic cinematography, make a necklace of great flash and fire. Surely this one, with its embarrassment of talent, will be mentioned in several categories, not only music, at Oscar time. Worth seeing--- absolutely. I can hardly wait for the DVD, so that I can watch its excess to excess.

The film is going to have a generational promotional gap, not just the much-discussed racial one. It can't be dismissed as "the hip-hop Moulin Rouge", as I heard one member of our preview audience critique it coming out of the theater. If she were old enough, she would know that it's more akin to a "hip-hop Caberet", with Rooster (Antwan Andre "Big Boi" Patton of Outkast) as Sally Bowles. Plot and camera work similarities to Moulin Rouge do not necessarily a "Moulin Noir" make, but yes, the similarities are there.

Let's don't go there. Let's talk about what's blazingly new and fresh about this musical. For people who "hate musicals", this one (as Cabaret did) solves the problem of two people in face-to-face dialogue embarrassingly and improbably breaking into song. The musical numbers are the entertainment at "The Church", a speakeasy in the South during Prohibition Era. Entertainment which is akin to Moulin Rouge's flamboyance, combining a jazz age lindy-hop with hip hop is dazzlingly choreographed by Tony Award winner Hinton Battle. While Macy Gray is wonderful as a hard-edged club singer, it is Rooster's first musical number at the Church, fusing jazz, cabaret and hip-hop, which blows the lid off.

OutKast fans (I count myself one) have to wait for plot development for the introverted Percival, played by Andre Benjamin, to display his musical talent. We are told it is there from the beginning of the movie, but it is not until he breaks out of his shell to coax the beautiful singer Angel Davenport (Paula Patton) to live her dream that he overcomes his stage fright and showcases his music. And there, ladies and gentlemen, is the centerpiece musical sparkler of this necklace, an impossible fusion number which turns sensational when
performed with confidence and style. Oh, my! What talent will do with notes on a page!

"The Church", wryly named to showcase the corruption of bootleg liquor running, gambling and prostitution, is the hang-out for the dapper gangsta-land "Spats", Ving Rhames, who keeps the lid on violence in the "Showtime at the Apollo" club atmosphere and the dangerous business of squeezing both his booze supplier and the club owner, Sunshine Ace. We despise Ace more than anyone in the movie, until we get to know Trumpy (chillingly played by the gorgeous Terence Howard), who also comes out of his "shell" to reveal himself as a stupid and sadistic killer. The odd flatness of Howard's voice is powerfully used here to underscore his stupidity and the delight he has in killing people.

When greats like Ben Vereen and Cicely Tyson are little more than
cameos, you know you have talent to spare. My one concern is that the music style may be too much fusion to keep the hip-hop fans happy, and the movie may be too hip-hop to attract the general audience it deserves. The horrid truth is that I am a middle-aged white woman, one of the two demographic segments supposed to love musicals. But while my credibility is suspect, my general film-critiquing skills are generally pretty solid. Abandon your preconceptions and your prejudices, whatever they are, and Just Go See.

There's a funny thing about "Idlewild" that few movies can achieve: you know you've seen everything on screen here before, but the movie is filmed, and put together, with such gusto and energy that it's next to impossible not to like.
I would reiterate the plot for you, but I'm not exactly sure what it is. Rooster, played by Antwan "Big Boi" Patton, "inherits" a Depression-era speakeasy called Church and must deal with a ruthless gangster played by "Hustle and Flow" star Terrance Howard. Percivel, played by Andre "Andre 3000" Benjamin, is the son of a mortician who dreams of being a jazz composer who meets and falls for a mysterious woman who comes to sing in the speakeasy.
Or something like that.
"Idlewild" has it's share of problems, that's for sure. The movie is twenty minutes too long and occasionally, mostly during the films final half an hour, gets bogged down in cliches and predicatability. Any moviegoer who has seen there fair share of movies can figure out what's going to happen to him and when about twenty minutes into the picture.
But you know what? Forget all that. "Idlewild" is a movie to be watched, not thought about, and sometimes that's okay. And you get a lot of good stuff to look at. Bryan Barber, who also wrote the script and has directed many OutKast videos as well, has an excellent eye for popping visuals, and he brings them all out here. The musical numbers are excellent and have an energy that is lacking from most movies. And I can honestly say that I have never seen a movie before that blends the French classic "Amelie", the old 1940's Warner Brothers film noir and gangster pictures and hip-hop music into one film before. And even if it doesn't all blend together flawlessly, you'd have to have a grey heart not to at least respect that.
The acting is pretty top notch as well. In addition to the always great Cicley Tyson and Ben Verren, both of whom are underused sadly, the film features some nice supporting turns, most notably from Ving Rhames, still the coolest actor on the planet not to get enought quality work. Newcomer Paula Patton, no relation to Antwan, is excellent in the role of love interst to Andre, Big Boi and Andre both perform their roles well, Big Boi full of energy and swagger, Andre full some still motions as if he were sculpture coming to life. It's a performance that some have written off as dull, but is in fact more layered then it first appears.
Again "Idlewild" is flawed and isn't going to save the world or change your mind about anything. But I don't think it's trying to. Rather "Idlewild" just wants to entertain you for two hours and for the most part it does that in spades.
Well worth a rental.

I'm not much into the hip hop songs created by Andre 3000 & Big Boi, but I've seen this movie a few weeks ago, and I was pleasantly surprised. The plot was a cliché, but the music and the acting were superb (the music was a few notches above the acting, but that's beside the point). Every song in this movie (except for one slow-moving one that's sung in the morticians' chamber) made me want to dance along (but I'm a bad dancer, so. . .). All the 30's dancing in this movie, especially during the end credits, were carefully & beautifully choreographed (mad props go to Hinton Battle). As for the acting, some performances were disappointing and 2-dimensional, like Paula Patton as Angel & Faizon Love as Ace, while others were brilliant and believable, like Terrence Howard as Trumpy and the incredible Ving Rhames as Spats.

In conclusion, I liked this movie. But I wouldn't recommend it to everybody. This is a movie not only for fans of Outkast, but also for fans of the old Speakeasy atmosphere.

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