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Parents' Guide to

Idlewild

By Cynthia Fuchs, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 15+

Musical featuring OutKast has sex, violence, language.

Movie R 2006 120 minutes
Idlewild Poster Image

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Beautifully composed and infectiously energetic, Idlewild often seems more like a two-hour music video than a fully plotted movie. Frequent OutKast collaborator Bryan Barber's first feature extends the twofer project of the group's 2003 double album Speakerboxx/The Love Below, tweaking gangster movie conventions with brilliant choreography, hip-hop beats, and inventive visual compositions.

Alternating between violence and fabulous, energetic hip-hop dance numbers (and a knockout blues performance by Macy Gray), in addition to Percival Sr.'s devotion to his long-dead wife and Rooster's seemingly divine encounter with a needy grandmother (Cicely Tyson), Idlewild has too much going on. But its mix of eras and aesthetics is invigorating, as are its fantastic dance numbers.

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