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Idlewild

  • Is it age appropriate?

    About our ratings

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    Not age appropriate for kids under 16, age appropriate for kids over 18; suggested age 16.

  • Is it any good?

    3.0

  • Common Sense says

    Violent musical featuring OutKast. Not for kids.

Why We Rated This iffy for Ages 16–18

What to watch out for

  • Messages:

    Central dance action in a speakeasy called "Church" characters lie, kill, and cheat; woman pretends to be a well-known star.

  • Violence:

    Ace pulls a knife; Trumpy and his men commit several murders, with guns (bloody, explosive effects); Rose hits Rooster hard with a frying pan; Trumpy plays "Russian roulette" with his gun on a flunky; Trumpy and his men beat up Rooster, splatting blood; as a mortician, Percival treats corpses (film includes photos and long takes of bodies, some bloody, others "fixed"); a primary female character is shot and killed by accident, causing her lover to cry; a central character sets up to hang himself, and stops at the last minute.

  • Sex:

    Stage dancers appear naked from the waist up with breasts and torsos painted, feathers and thongs barely covering their bottoms; dancing is often sexualized; men slap women's bottoms (one man bites Rose's bottom); Rooster "goes down" on Rose, explicitly, from her POV; Rose moans with delight; Zora complains that Rooster cheats on her; a sex scene with naked breasts visible briefly.

  • Language:

    Several instances of "f--k" and repeated use of n-word by black characters; repeated use of "s--t" and other curse words.

  • Consumerism:

    Old-fashioned Pepsi sign in background.

  • Drinking, drugs, & smoking:

    Rooster carries a flask with an animated talking rooster that advises him; characters smoke cigarettes, cigars, and pipes regularly; Rooster collects "hooch" from bootleggers; characters drink liquor and champagne in the club, "Church."
 

What Parents Need to Know

About Idlewild

Parents need to know that this film isn't appropriate for kids, who may know OutKast from the hit song "Hey Ya!" It includes stylized and graphic violence, mostly beatings and shootings of male gangsters, with bloody results (a woman is also shot, though she dies more "delicately" and melodramatically). Female stage dancers wear skimpy costumes, showing breasts (painted) and barely-covered derrieres. A mortician works on bodies, one arriving with blood under its head. A character considers suicide by hanging, going so far as to arrange the noose and chair in his house. A couple of sex scenes: one in the back of a car involves cunnilingus (a man is cheating on his wife); a second scene takes place in a bedroom. Characters use foul language, smoke cigars, cigarettes, and pipes, and drink lots of liquor and champagne in a speakeasy/whorehouse called "Church."

Did this review help you decide?

Families Can Talk About

  • Families can talk about the friendship between Rooster and Percival. Though they hardly appear on screen together, how does the film connect them thematically and aesthetically? How are the protagonists' transformations significant, as the stereotypically "gangster" Rooster become a devoted family man and the shy Percival becomes a star piano player? How does the film use music (singing and dancing) to move the plot? How does Percival's decision to follow his dreams and leave his father's business affect his father?
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