IDLEWILD Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Universal Pictures
Grade: B
Directed by: Bryan Barber
Written By: Bryan Barber
Cast: Andre Benjamin, Antwan A. Patton, Paula Patton,
Terrence Howard, Melinda Williams, Macy Gray, Ben Vereen,
Ving Rhames, Faizon Love
Screened at: AMC 34th Street, NYC, 9/3/06
Opens: August 25, 2006 John Anderson, the distinguished critic with Variety magazine, states that “Idlewild” should “achieve crossover success,” which makes me wonder: should we assume that a movie with an all-black cast (except for the white station master who appears for five seconds) will not likely appeal to any group except African-Americans? By extension, would “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” appeal only to an audience of Greek descent? In fact, more hip hop records are sold to whites than to blacks, who presumably snap up many of the twenty million CDs cranked out by the stars of “Idlewild,” Antwan “Big Boi” Patton and Andre “Andre 3000" Benjamin. OutKast, as the Atlanta-based duo is called, is an astonishingly successful rap group, whose output has included five studio albums and a double album containing a solo disk from each member of the duo. Some of the titles from “Stankonia,” produced six years ago, are “I’m Cool,” “So Fresh, So Clean,” and “Xplosion.” Benjamin and Patton are as funky and likable in writer-director Bryan Barber’s film as they are on their CDs. The real issue is not whether a white (and presumably Asian) audience would dig a pic with an all-black cast but whether Barber’s original style, which makes one think of Baz Luhrmann’s experimental “Moulin Rouge!” ( a visual, hypokinetic dazzler about a star-crossed love affair circa 1900 full of extraordinary images), can astonish an audience that may be too literal for its own good, with its array of special effects and unselfconscious anachronisms. The movie uses a hip flask with a talking rooster imprinted on its metal, a series of cuckoo clocks that mirror the cuckoo texture of the film and sometimes go totally wild by spinning around the numbers like a top, cartoons that dance and fall from a sheet of music, and a melange of dancing including hip-hop, which a night club audience in 1935 would have had to wait decades to witness. Its principal flaw is its lack of solid narrative structure particularly in the first half-hour, when some in the audience might be tempted to leave the theater in frustration. Patience. Filmed largely in Wilmington, North Carolina to take the place of Idlewild, Georgia, the movie takes us into a Prohibition-era club run by hustlers and sociopathic gangsters, focusing principally on Percival (Andre Benjamin) and his long-term friend, Rooster (Antwan Patton). Percival is being groomed by his stern, old-fashioned father (Ben Vereen) to take over the mortician business while Rooster is an unredeemed bootlegger and womanizer who regularly deceives his wife (Malinda Williams). When the funeral business is dead (or not dead enough, depending on how you look at things), Percival plays piano at a speakeasy owned by Sunshine Act (Faizon Love), looked over by a loan shark and psycho gangster, Trumpy (Terrence Howard). When Sunshine is gunned down, the club inherited by Rooster, Trumpy declares that the new owner owes him not just $1100 but “25 large,” a debt presumably made by the deceased Sunshine. While Percival remains the soft-spoken good-guy who attracts the interest of Angel Davenport (Paula Patton), the latter having traveled nineteen miles by train coach from St. Louis to Idlewild with the hope of making it big eventually in Chicago. That leaves Rooster as the likeable hood who will get a chance to redeem himself. Between the talk of making it big and the jealous gossip of women who take a dislike immediately to the beautiful Angel Davenport, music-video veteran Barber sets out some rambunctious dancing and singing, some of which is booed by the crowd of low-lifes who patronize the club and sometimes throw chairs and bottles at the performers, while others get standing ovations. Structurally, “Idlewild” is all over the place, but with its infectious rhythms and bold imagination, we’re happy to cut quite a bit of slack. Rated R. 120 minutes 2006 by Harvey Karten
harveycritic@cs.com Member: NY Film Critics Online | 
