IDLEMILD
If nothing else, Outkast's new Idlewild film (and really, their whole career arc) suggests that our conceptions of what a "hip-hop movie" should sound/look like needs to be exploded and reconceived. It's safe to say that no other mainstream rap group - and by mainstream, I'm merely noting that the group has sold over 20,000,000 albums in the last 12 years - has been so consistently creative in pushing against whatever expectations have been placed on them. People, myself included, like to describe them as "post-hip-hop" which doesn't mean they've some how moved past the aesthetic...rather, they've transcended the narrow conventional limitations of how we've come to understand it. The pity though is that few other artists have really tried to follow in their footsteps - it's a lot easier (and safer) to clone G-Unit's formula for success than try to step into Andre 3000 or Big Boi's shoes.
Maybe that's why a movie like Idlewild couldn't have involved anyone besides Outkast [1]: how many rap artists could pull off a 1930s period piece cum musical and not leave people scratching their heads at the very concept? Whether they succeed in that vision is a different story (which we'll get to in a moment) but you can never accuse the group of not being bold in their ambitions.
That said, Idlewild may have flash and panache for days but at heart, it's still more or less a trumped up B-movie. Don't get me wrong: I found it stylistically arresting and entertaining and I'm sure it's a lot more fun to sit through vs. <I>Get Rich or Die Tryin'</i> but given how adventurous Outkast is in their music, you'd think the film would have taken more chances on things like, oh, plot and character development. The only two defenses you can really muster are rather limp: 1) they're rappers not actors and 2) it's a musical. I don't find either very compelling, not when the movie itself descends in eye-rollingly obvious cliches and a narrative so predictable, you could set a watch to it. [2]
If Idlewild is a triumph of style over substance...the style is pretty damn good. For one thing, the sound design in the film is amazing; I can't remember the last time I spent so much time admiring how a film sounded and I'm not just talking about the musical numbers. That's not to take anything away from the visual flair of the film either... it's shot and choreographed beautifully, especially on an opening number (Big Boi's first performance) where lindy-hopping dancers are shown slo-mo-ing through the air with what can only be described as an explosive grace. Most of the musical numbers succeed well in the film, which you'd expect (or at least hope to) but even the stranger moments - the incorporation of "Chronometrophobia" (which appears on both album and movie), complete with a phalanx of cuckoo clocks plus a strange and unsettling performance of "She Lives In My Lap" (sans Rosario Dawson) - are alluring and captivating.
The problem is that most everything else around it isn't. Big Boi definitely gets the meatier role between him and Andre and he exudes charisma by the buckets as Rooster. Andre's shy, aloof PJ is rather faux-deep: yeah, yeah, we get it - he's an (drum roll please) outcast in his family and local community, no one understands him except for The New Girl (who looks enough like Alicia Keys that I had to do a double-take at times), and he's gotta get to the bright lights in the big city. All you need is someone to get thrown into Lake Minnetonka and replace Terrance Howard (who's wasted here) with Morris Day and you got Purple Rain - The Prohibition Years.
I was talking about the film with Hua and we both agreed: the film opens with this surreal, artsy flair and we wished that it had stayed on that track rather than feel like it had to provide some conventional narrative to hang its hat on. What Outkast do best is to be different and weird and enthralling. Idlewild is fun to watch and listen to but beneath that surface shine, it's possibly the most staid project the group has ever committed itself to and that's a direction 'Kast doesn't need to be moving in.
By the way, Ernest Hardy's review of the film is dead-on (and a lot more articulate).
[1] Or Mos Def.
[2] The film is also surprisingly, graphically violent and this was something neither expected nor desired.
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