Average Rating: 5.7/10
Reviews Counted: 126
Fresh: 60 | Rotten: 66
Idlewild has some truly breathtaking moments, but borrows too heavily from other similar movies, and the disjointed script is not worthy of talents involved.
Average Rating: 5.7/10
Critic Reviews: 35
Fresh: 15 | Rotten: 20
Idlewild has some truly breathtaking moments, but borrows too heavily from other similar movies, and the disjointed script is not worthy of talents involved.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 26,944
OutKast duo André "Andre 3000" Benjamin and Antwan Andre "Big Boi" Patton star as two Prohibition-era performers determined to fend off the vicious gangsters currently attempting to gain a stake in the pair's lucrative club in this musical drama directed by longtime collaborator Bryan Barber and featuring choreography by three-time Tony award winner Hinton Battle. In the 1930s, Idlewild was the hottest speakeasy in the South thanks to the impressive showmanship of flamboyant manager/lead
Aug 25, 2006 Wide
Dec 5, 2006
$12.5M
Universal Pictures
All Critics (131) | Top Critics (36) | Fresh (63) | Rotten (67) | DVD (4)
You don't have to have a stylistic device in every single shot.
Shakespeare has been quoted many, many times over the past 400 or so years, but never to such empty purpose as in the inchoate, self-indulgent musical drama Idlewild
By jumbling genres, fashions, music and locales, and riddling bullets through much of it, Idlewild ends up feeling disjointed and disquieting.
A series of pretty-good pop videos wrapped around a confusing tale of Chitlin' Circuit striving and conniving.
Idlewild comes alive only during the production numbers, which look and feel more like music videos than music as storytelling.
[The Outkast duo] are, as might be expected, terrific in the musical numbers and painfully self-conscious in the dramatic sequences.
Benjamin and Patton have devised a basic Prohibition era gangster story as a background for their newest musical experiment melding modern hip-hop with the jazz and blues of the '30s, all put together with a great deal of visual cleverness and flair.
Its hodgepodge plot only heightens its stale smell
Violent musical featuring OutKast. Not for kids.
Though not as good as I hoped it would be, it's still an above par musical effort in the end...
1930s black America becomes just a stage for OutKast's vanity project.
Neither fish nor fowl. Nor foul, either, though not great--and ultimately, more idle than wild.
In spite of several inspired moments where it exhibits some genuine promise, this desperate attempt to be all things to all people ends up sabotaging any potential to make a memorable contribution to the annals of cinema.
Visually, the picture pleasantly harks back to a bygone era, but it simultaneously undercuts that sense of nostalgia by indulging in incessant profanity, the N-word, rap music and some thoroughly modern dance moves.
The music, which sounds like a collaboration between Cab Calloway and Run DMC, keeps the story flowing.
Idlewild overflows with inventiveness and random weirdness that sort of make it a must-see even if it isn't a particularly good film.
For a band whose music is suffused with such delicate irony, you'd expect at the very least for there to be a few laughs along the way? There are none. Nothing. Zero.
Fans happy to luxuriate in its artistic indulgence, however, will be swept up in the weird, random, fantastic OutKastness of it all.
See it. Chances are, you'll fall in love with Idlewild in spite of how many times you've seen this plot before. But that might be the Georgia boy in me talking...
June 11, 2011Super Reviewer
This movie is beautiful. It's everything Chicago should have been: the music, the characters, the set design, the costumes, the script, the strange balance between tragedy, comedy and romance. This movie is really something special. Beautifully shot and the story is very well-crafted and tight. I love the surreality of
February 12, 2008Super Reviewer
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