What’s extraordinary about Idlewild, Outkast’s first foray into feature film, isn’t the stylized beauty, expertly choreographed numbers or smart soundtrack. Instead, it’s that Idlewild was ever theatrically released.
Idlewild isn’t so much a film as it is an extended promo for the soundtrack. Its closest relative isn’t 8 Mile but 3 Chains o’ Gold, Prince’s glossy, over-the-top feature-length ad for his The Love Symbol album. Like most films of its ilk, Prince’s album promo was released direct to video. And, despite some engaging moments and how expert Outkast’s music is, Idlewild should have had a similar distribution.
Unlike 3 Chains o’ Gold, Idlewild takes more of a musical-inspired approach. Usually, when Percival (Andre Benjamin, or Andre 3000), a repressed mortician-cum-piano player, and Rooster (Antwan A. Patton, or Big Boi), a hustler, entertainer, and reluctant family man, start in on a song, it’s in the confines of The Church, a Prohibition club in Georgia that resembles more a vaudeville by way of the Moulin Rouge than a typical Southern speakeasy. They both work there, so the numbers are motivated. When other tunes are belted out — like when Percival is lamenting the death of his lover, Sally (Paula Patton), and when Rooster is being chased and shot at by the Morris Day-inspired gangster, Trumpy (Terrence Howard) — they are nothing more than big-budget music videos. Still, these moments are fun and visually wonderful. When Percival is awakened by a wall full of cuckoo clocks, for instance, Bryan Barber’s direction guides the scene from typical MTV to Michel Gondry sublimity.
Yet it’s hard to shake the feeling that Idlewild is aimless. Is it a collection of videos, or is it a meta-musical like Moulin Rouge? There is more than a passing resemblance to Baz Luhrmann’s film about the French can-can. Barber and Outkast take music and dance from the 1930s and infuse them with a healthy dose of modernity, and they even cherry-pick some Moulin Rouge narrative elements. Unfortunately, Barber and Outkast can’t sustain the thrust that made Moulin Rouge unique. They try, admirably, but get bogged down by and can’t overcome the extended music video feel of the film.
Article comments