Movies
The Wild Ride of “Idlewild”
By Esther Iverem—SeeingBlack.com Editor and Film Critic
Aug 25, 2006, 11:34

The same eccentricity and whimsy that has kept Outkast on top of the music charts follows the hip hop duo onto the big screen in “Idlewild,” a big mishmash of a film that is not short on surprise, entertainment—or confusion.

Part buddy flick, part gangster flick, part romance, part whorehouse drama and, let’s not forget, part musical, “Idlewild” certainly isn’t lacking in content or even in appeal, particularly for Outkast fans. But maybe this film has too much content, unfortunately of a predictable and thin quality, so that very little of it survives the mishmash.

Set in a southern town during the 1930’s, it follows the friendship between Percival (André Benjamin), the good-boy mortician’s son who is a gifted pianist, and Rooster (Antwan A. Patton), a bad-boy hustler who is also a talented entertainer. While, oddly, Rooster marries and has many children, Percival remains a bachelor, living with his father and training to take over the mortuary business. As adults, their professional paths meet at a raucous nightclub and brothel that everyone refers to as “The Church,” where much singing, dancing and drinking of illegal “hooch” goes on. (Other kinds of hoochie-coochie seem to go on there as well.)

It is at the church where Rooster becomes entangled with the local thug, Trumpy, (Terrence Howard) and Percival meets an up-and-coming singer, Angel Davenport (Paula Patton). These new associations will alter the direction of each man’s life. In the meantime, each gets to perform at the club and for us, giving the movie its claim to being a hip hop musical. Both Benjamin and Patton accomplish a clever melding between today’s music and what existed in the popular jazz and Black cabaret scenes of the 1930’s. Their performances at the club are also a reminder that the ills of society usually laid at the feet of hip-hop have been around, in some form, for a long time.

Music video director Bryan Baker is the writer and director here and many of the musical and non-musical scenes have music video written all over them. Scenes at the “church” and a love scene between Percival and Angel exist like visual islands unto themselves, filled with some standard video props—sexily dressed ladies, gyrating booties and, when possible, people naked in a bed. Thankfully, as compared to most musicals, characters in “Idlewild” don’t suddenly burst into song to convey emotion. But these video islands—including a fun finale that you must watch to credits to see—do feel like they were visualized and conceived of first with the rest of the story created as filler in between.

As a result of its jumble of stories, emotions and textures—ranging from cold-blooded murder to animated musical notes— “Idlewild” presents itself more as ornate spectacle than a story with characters that we are really supposed to connect with and care about. The possible exception is the character of Percival but even he is limited by what we don’t know about him.

It is great to see, all in one flick, Terrence Howard, Ving Rhames, Macy Gray, Cicely Tyson, Ben Vereen, Patti LaBelle and many emerging stars. For this gathering alone, and despite its shortcomings, the film could be one that fans will treasure as a unique contribution from two popular musicians.

Or, maybe, “Idlewild” will be forgotten as easily as the next rotation of music videos.


Esther Iverem's seoncd book of poems, Living in Babylon, is available at www.Amazon.com

© Copyright by SeeingBlack.com