There is a wonderful sequence early on where the tune operates as a narrative device, when Percival wakes up and serenades the new day in chorus with a wall of cuckoo clocks. Once again, we are provided with an example of what could have been had the filmmakers spent more time thinking about what they were endeavoring to create. This could have something to do with the fact that many of the tracks were not written for Idlewild, but were lifted off of Outkast's previous album, Speakerboxxx/The Love Below. Beyond that, the filmmakers also seem to forget that they can use the song lyrics to advance the action, rather than just being a superfluous sidebar.
IDLEWILD OUTKAST ALBUM COVER MOVIE
The problem is that the musical numbers get fewer and farther between the longer the movie goes on. A lot of classic musicals are built on extremely thin plots. It's not that Idlewild needed an entirely original story. You get one guess how that Bible protects him. She gives him a Bible and tells him if he keeps it on him at all times, he will always be safe.
The only more boring opening might have been something like, "Webster's dictionary defines Idlewild as." The worst offense, though-and I don't think I spoil anything by telling you this-is when it's all hitting the fan, and Rooster runs into Cicely Tyson. At one point, the movie's villain, Trumpy (Terrence Howard), actually tells someone they shouldn't bring a knife to a gun fight, and how Barber avoided being too embarrassed to write a screenplay that starts with the Shakespeare lines "Life is but a stage, and we merely players" is something I have not yet figured out. Really, though, it's just a string of clichés.
Barber increasingly loses sight of the fact that he started off making a musical and gets bogged down in what is alleged to be a story. Once Ace is taken out of the action, Idlewild sinks like a stone. Ironically, he does, and the picture becomes an object lesson in being careful what you wish for. I kept praying for him to get off the screen. Love goes so far beyond oddball, it's obnoxious. I don't remember the last time I've seen such an over-the-top performance. Eccentric soul singer Macy Gray plays Taffy, a boozing ringleader of the scantily clad club dancers, and Faizon Love plays Ace, the club's skinflint, pipe-chomping owner. Rooster is the nephew of Idlewild's lead bootlegger (Ving Rhames), and Percival (Andre 3000) has grown up to be Rooster's weird friend, the mortician's son who plays piano and writes songs, but who vomits if put in the spotlight. You see, it's 1935, and the Outkast duo have decided not to make the usual struggling young artists picture, and instead they're making a Prohibition-era gangster musical (even though Prohibition was repealed in 1933). He raps and dances, and the barroom floor fills with jitterbuggers. Percival sees musical notes come alive and live the sort of raucous life he dreams about.įrom the fantastic opening montage, Barber takes us straight into our first big number at Church, the speakeasy where grown-up Rooster (Antwan A. For instance, Rooster inherits a flask with his namesake on it, and the carved bird encourages his bad behavior, an animated devil riding in his breast pocket. The world the boys live in is made as fun as the duo wants it to be, an extension of their own creative imaginations. The kid tells jokes and tap-dances, and he's an absolute delight. Thompson as the little version of Rooster is hysterical. We meet them as young children, learn about their families, and see them become grown men. Via this technique, Barber takes us to Idlewild, Georgia, and introduces us to our main characters: Percival and Rooster. He toys with the anachronisms of hip hop as they clash with the old-school genre, messing with time signatures, speeding both the audio and video up and down to keep the narrative moving in a way that simulates a DJ scratching on a record. Andre 3000), Barber plays with still photos, spot animation, and jump cuts to work his way through a ton of exposition. Cutting to the rhythm of Outkast's jazzy hip-hop score, and working with a lively voiceover delivered by André Benjamin (a.k.a. Writer/director Bryan Barber takes what he has learned from making music videos and looks poised to deliver a fresh new updating of movie musicals. For the first fifteen minutes or so, Idlewild is one of the coolest movies you will see this year.
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