"Idlewild" *1/2 (out of four): Disappointingly muddled throwback to 1930s musicals with some, but not enough, hip-hop flavor thrown in from the group OutKast.

I don’t think anyone has ever used the word “conventional” to describe OutKast, the wildly inventive hip-hop combo of André “3000” Benjamin and Antwan “Big Boi” Patton. It comes as a surprise, then, to see that “Idlewild”, their take on a depression-era fable about two childhood friends who grow up in the titular Georgia town, is as woefully standard as it is joyfully anachronistic. As the film playfully introduces the two characters as young boys, it appears as though “Idlewild” might be up to something interesting. But what could have been a hip-hop “Moulin Rouge” instead becomes a musical “Harlem Nights”. “Idlewild” features a talented cast wasted on a poor script while playing gangster in the early 1900s.

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