By Frank H. Woodward
Aug 24, 2006, 8:48 GMT
Music is the thing that bonds Percival (Andre Benjamin / Andre 3000) and Rooster (Antwon A. Patton / Big Boi). Music also makes “Idlewild” as entertaining as it is. The electric tunes and razzle dazzle numbers they inspire make up for a pair of standard storylines. It is the music indeed.
In 1935, Idlewild, Georgia is hopping with jazz, juke joints, women, gangsters and hooch. Don’t expect a historical epic, though. “Idlewild” has as much to do with Black history as “Moulin Rouge” did with gay Paris.
In fact, Bryan Barber (director of Andre 300 and Big Boi’s Outkast videos) plays fast and loose with reality throughout his feature film debut.
Musical notes live and breathe as animated muses before piano “star in the making” Percival’s eyes. The rooster on Rooster’s flask taunts and teases the jazz club gangster down his more sinful path. “All the world’s a stage” are the first words we hear in “Idlewild” and Barber and his cast of singers and dancers revel in this sentiment.
“Idlewild”s musical moments are brassy. Thumping. Sexy. The songs are carefree mash ups of jazz, hip hop and even gospel. Unlike “Moulin Rouge” where old tunes are twisted into something new, these tunes are examples of the ancient craft of songwriting reenergized by Outkast and composer John Debney.
The staging of the songs, like Macy Gray’s “Greatest Show On Earth”, go beyond music video and feel like musical numbers from the heyday of Hollywood. Even a solo number like Benjamin’s “Chronometrophobia” is an elaborate choreography this time involving a synchronized chorus of cuckoo clocks.
Performances are just as stylized and charismatic. In addition to Patton and Benjamin’s natural charm, ‘Idlewild’ has a full line up of cinema’s finest black actors (Ving Rhames, Terrence Howard, Macy Gray, Cicely Tyson, Patti LaBelle and Ben Vereen).
New and lesser known faces are just as magnetic especially the stunning Paula Patton. To play the fated singer Angel Davenport, Miss Patton balances world wise sexuality with ingénue vulnerability in the form of a romantic dreamer. She has all the makings of a classic Hollywood starlet.
Where ‘Idlewild’ sags is in its predictable, cliché ridden storylines. Percival and Rooster each have their own path. Percival’s tale is a “by the numbers” tragic love story while Rooster’s is taken from a dog eared gangster flick. There’s nothing we haven’t seen before in these plotlines and, though the aforementioned actors effortlessly engage our interest, we never really invest ourselves in their respective outcomes.
There’s also very little sense of place to ‘Idlewild.’ We’re told the film takes place in the South, but there is no sense of what Southern living in the 1930’s was like for the black community.
‘Idlewild’ could just as easily take place in Harlem or Chicago.
But ‘Idlewild’ is content to be a fairy tale told through the subwoofer of jazz / hip hop fusion. In those moments when the film dazzles, you won’t care about anything else.
Opens: August 25, 2006 MPAA: Rated R
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