Image courtesy of www.impawards.com
Director :
Bryan Barber
Cast :
Andre Benjamin……….Percival
Antwan A. Patton……….Rooster
Paula Patton……….Angel
Terrence Howard……….Trumpy
Faizon Love……….Ace
Malinda Williams……….Zora
Macy Gray……….Taffy
Ben Vereen……….Percy Senior
Ving Rhames……….Spats
When it comes to making a great film, there are plenty of things that need to be available. A good soundtrack, a cast that works well together, good visuals and top notch camerawork are the usual prerequisites for any great film, and Idlewild has a plethora of those. It’s a stunning, visual masterpiece with a good cast, great music and some of the more inspired camerawork of the last year. Its infectious fun that seems to bring almost everything needed to the table to be one of the best films of the year. Everything except for a good script, that is.
Idlewild centers on a pair of friends growing up in Depression era Idlewild, Georgia: Percival (Andre Benjamin) and Rooster (Antwan Patton). Percival is the son of the local mortician (Ben Vereen), a church-going man helping to run his father’s business while fostering a passion for music. Playing piano part time with his pal Rooster, he lives the quiet life with his father. Rooster, on the other hand, is the heir apparent to club owner Ace (Faizon Love) at Church, the local speak-easy. Running illegal liquor to and fro while also doubling as the place’s prime entertainment, his wild life is in direct contrast with his friend’s. Under the tutelage of Spats (Ving Rhames), Rooster has shown a propensity for business that is masked by his hard-drinking, womanizing lifestyle that threatens to take it all away. When Ace and Spats are both gunned down by their mutual associate Trumpy (Terrence Howard) in a deal for the club gone bad, Rooster assumes the responsibility for running Church. When a beautiful singer (Paula Patton) enters both their lives, both men have to deal with a changing world that forces them to grow and change as people.
Filled with lots of music numbers and some stylized shootouts, on a technical level this is a top level film. Bryan Barber, who has directed Patton and Benjamin before under their musical names Big Boi and Andre 3000 in the musical group Outkast, shows the same sort of flair for style in his big screen debut as he did with his music videos. The film also feels like an extended music video, as it goes from song & dance number to a bare minimum of plot followed by another song & dance number, and evaluated on this vantage point alone the film can be considered a success. Barber, much like Chris Robinson in ATL (which had Patton in a supporting role), does all the visual-story-telling aspects much better than many other experienced directors do. Coming from the world of music video direction, where the audio-visual element is the vast majority of making a good music video, it’s easy to see why this is done so well. Barber also has the advantage of directing from his own script as well as using two principle members of the cast whom he’s worked with plenty of times before. There are plenty of interesting touches done during the film in terms of animation inserted into parts of the film, Rooster’s flask and Percival’s music notes, that are nothing special and yet add a unique dimension to the film.
And with all this going well, the lack of a great script is a bit disappointing. A first time writer, Barber’s script is filled with plenty of fun but not as much character and plot development that could turn the story from good to great. The cast is game for the roles, as Barber has a terrific all-around cast that turns in good performances across the board, but the characters don’t have as much life in them from the beginning as they could have. Barber has the potential for a great story with a bit more experience as a writer, as Idlewild manages to have a story that’s good enough to keep the film moving and interesting in between the music, it’s just not as engaging as it could’ve been. Patton and Benjamin have a strong sense of their characters and mesh well with them, it’s just there’s not enough done with them. Everything is done to them, not giving enough of the characters that is clearly needed and wanted.
| CATEGORY | SCORE |
| STORY | 3 / 10 |
| ACTING | 6 / 10 |
| LOOK/FEEL | 9.5 / 10 |
| ORIGINALITY | 7 / 10 |
| ENTERTAINMENT VALUE | 7 / 10 |
