Not Idle, nor Wild, just a let down

With "Idlewild," popular hip-hop duo Outkast try to reimagine old school gangster films and classic Hollywood musicals by injecting their modern rap style. It's an ambitious task. When it works, it works extremely well, but it often strains to connect the dots from element to element.\nSet in prohibition-era Georgia, the film follows life-long friends Percival (André Benjamin) and Rooster (Big Boi), who work at a speakeasy called "Church." Reserved Percival, who's been unhappily laboring away at his father's (Ben Veeren) funeral home for years instead of realizing his dreams as a songwriter, escapes through his piano while he backs up frontman Rooster (think a hip-hop Fred Astaire). When the club's owner is murdered by gangster Trumpy (Terrence Howard), Rooster inherits Church, and its debt, and turns things around by hiring a celebrity singer, Angel Davenport (newcomer Paula Patton). Unsatisfied by his payments, Trumpy starts a war with Rooster while Percival falls for Angel.\nThe film's savior is director Bryan Barber, who fills the film with lots of eye candy and popping effects. Barber brings much of the similar, original style to the film that he did to the music videos he's directed for the group. There's frenzied camera shifting, flipping and twirling. In some shots certain people freeze completely, while others' movements are sped up and mixed like a record player. Newspaper photos come to life, a talking flask offers Rooster advice, and dance scenes are slowed down to show just how elaborate and complex the choreography is. The style, similar to "Moulin Rouge," is something that could only be obtained through the median of film. \nBarber's contributions to the film aren't all positive; he also wrote the weak script. The story is pure paint-by-numbers gangster material thrown in with the whole "hardworking son trying to escape his overbearing father" arc. The film's voice-over, provided by Percival, gives us the age-old lesson: all the world's a stage and we're just performers making entrances and exits. Cliches making your head spin yet? \nWhat's worse, the film has trouble focusing on one specific plot element and irritatingly goes back and forth from the love story, the family issues, and the mafia war.\nConsidering this is a musical, the musical numbers should be the best part. However, they're too few and the music, while not bad, doesn't really fuse with the jazz style it seeks to. The background score is more entertaining that the original songs. While the songs may not shine, watching them performed is fun due to the cool way they're filmed. But, um, how do you make a musical and not have singing legends Vereen and Patti LaBelle (who makes a cameo) show their A game? Like much else in Idlewild, sheen takes the place of solidity, and the audience is left wanting.