Idlewild

Let me tell you that I went into this film with extremely high expectations. First of all, it’s a musical, and I’m almost always delighted when characters break into an intricate song and dance number that in real life would clearly demand months of rehearsal. Nothing puts you in that happy mood and gets the limbs a jumpin’ like a fine, catchy tune along with flashy visual accompaniment. Second, I’m certainly an OutKast fan. In fact, I consider their last album to be somewhat of a social unifier. I don’t know anyone who, regardless of age, class, or tendencies in musical taste doesn’t love the shit out of “Hey-Ya!” I can hardly remember a party or dance oriented event since that album came out that didn’t have everyone in attendance shaking to those rhythmic three claps, although, I do believe digital cameras may have rendered a certain, memorable command obsolete. And third, I had heard tell that the film featured a singing flask.

And boy did it. That flask was all over the damn place, rapping about this and that, and filling that delightful Big Boi with sunshine, smiles, and the inspiration with which to come up, seemingly on the spot, with rhyming observations and lamentations. Liquor can make one get deep.

So Idlewild is about two pals who work in a night club and deal with important life events, all while dressed in the awesome, old-timey attire a period piece demands. One is the outgoing, popular, and drunken star performer at said club, while the other nebbishly taps away at the accompanying piano and hopes for grand things, one of which will involve the consent of his new lady friend. But soon, driven by the perfectly evil and veritably unquenchable desire for money and the things money can buy, the bad guy, that Terrance Howard, comes along and makes things dramatic.

The movie as a whole was less like a film and more like a series of wonderfully entertaining song and dance numbers injected with spans of so-so, transitional “talk” scenes. Maybe it was the fact that whenever one of the musical numbers ended, a little part of my heart wept, or maybe it was the fact that Idlewild is the director Bryan Barber’s first full-length feature attempt. The “musical” parts were dazzling, well-shot, and well-timed, whereas the “regular movie” parts, while good, certainly contained elements of a person learning how to direct a movie. Now, I’m no director, but as a reasonably informed audience member I could certainly detect moments of awkward scene transition, oddly timed dialogue, and even unnecessary banter that could have easily been pulled in order to make room for, well, more musical numbers. Idlewild as a whole is not the best film in the world, as my admittedly high expectations had imagined, but it is still a wonderful and engaging project.

Plus, they’ve really accomplished something if they’ve managed to keep my spirits high and my smile alive during nearly two-hours immersed in that dreadful prohibition era of our history. Just the idea of such a time gives me the urge to rush to our neighborhood alcohol vendor and make sure it’s still up and running.