Full Review

Bold and brassy but at times raunchy, the Prohibition-era musical "Idlewild" (Universal) resists easy categorizing. On the one hand, it's a throwback to 1930s gangster films and Busby Berkeley extravaganzas. Yet it's also thoroughly a product of the MTV age, both good and bad.

Director Bryan Barber's experiment in fusion filmmaking is one of the more stylish and innovative films of the year, regardless of its flaws.

Hip-hop recording artists Andre Benjamin and Antwan A. Patton -- known collectively as OutKast -- are impressive as childhood friends Percy and Rooster, whose stories play out amid romance and racketeering at a speak-easy called "the Church" in the titular rural Georgia town circa 1935. The melancholic Percy works for his overbearing father Percy Sr. (Ben Vereen) at Dad's funeral parlor but moonlights as a piano player at the gin joint, where he falls in love with its new diva headliner, Angel (Paula Patton).

By contrast, Rooster is a brash bootlegger who, when not performing onstage, is carousing with showgirls to the chagrin of his long-suffering wife, Zora (Malinda Williams). After he witnesses an ambitious young hood, Trumpy (a dynamic Terrence Howard), gun down mobster Spats (Ving Rhames) and the club's foulmouthed owner, Sunshine Ace (Faizon Love), Rooster finds himself dodging bullets.

Barber pays homage to everything from Vincent Minnelli's "Cabin in the Sky" to Baz Luhrmann's "Moulin Rouge," echoing the latter in its grafting of a contemporary vibe onto a period piece and inventive incorporation of trick effects into the narrative. (Among the more imaginative: a wisecracking fowl on Rooster's pocket flask and animated notations that playfully run amok on Percy's sheet music.)

The jazzy visuals are complemented by splashy dance numbers -- be warned, some are risque -- choreographed by Broadway's Hinton Battle and an eclectic soundtrack that consists of original songs, Cab Calloway and Bessie Smith, all with a hip-hop twist.

While the film has visual pizzazz, it loses momentum when it comes to the story, playing for stretches like an extended music video.

For all the film's virtues, its obscenity-laden dialogue and gratuitous brutality and salaciousness are objectionable. While there is a redemptive ending, especially in regard to Rooster's philandering, the troubling elements will severely limit the movie's appeal to a wider audience.

The film contains pervasive rough and crude language and profanity, some strong violence, a couple of racy sexual encounters, one with shadowy nudity, adultery, an attempted suicide, risque costuming and choreography and some racial epithets. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is L -- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is R -- restricted. Under 17 requires accompanying parent or adult guardian.

Movies have been evaluated by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishop's Office for Film and Broadcasting according to artistic merit and moral suitability. The reviews include the USCCB rating, the Motion Picture Association of America rating, and a brief synopsis of the movie.

The classifications are as follows:

• A-I -- general patronage;
• A-II -- adults and adolescents;
• A-III -- adults;
• A-IV**
• L -- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. L replaces the previous classification, A-IV.
• O -- morally offensive.