Every frame of this delirious period musical featuring the hip-hop duo OutKast is alive. There hasn’t been a movie musical this impulsive, this risky, this impetuous since Moulin Rouge. OutKast’s Andre Benjamin and Antwan A. Patton – working from a story by writer-director Bryan Barber, the man behind the group’s music videos – play a pair of childhood friends who grow up to become performers in a speakeasy in 1930s Georgia. There are moments when the filmmakers’ vision outdistances their execution, but the picture’s effervescent spirit overrides any rough spots. It’s the smoothest movie to ever occasionally stumble.
