TAKE THE LEAD

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Mad Hot Banderas

Ballroom Dancing Goes To Public School Again
By Cole Smithey

Since the success of last year’s dance documentary "Mad Hot Ballroom," Hollywood has thrown together a formulaic narrative riff on the idea of New York public school students learning ballroom dance as a way of socializing poor kids out of their lower class traps.

Antonio Banderas saunters through his performance in a glorified rendition of real-life ballroom dance teacher Pierre Dulaine, who brings classical dance training to bear on a group of tin-eared, hip hop-crazed high school misfits.

Forget that the real life Dulaine taught much younger elementary school kids because this is by no means a biopic.

Director of Photography Alex Nepomniaschy ("Narc") fumbles with where to put the camera to capture JoAnn Jansen’s ill-conceived choreography. Every sub-plot wilts on the vine in a redundant movie lacking narrative focus.

Beware the words, "feature film debut of veteran music video and commercial director." You can barely speak the well-worn phrase without spitting. In this case, Liz Friedlander proudly wears the crown of thorns that signals an inability to create any narrative arc that stretches for more than three minutes.

The movie starts out with a cliché montage of culturally divergent characters dressing up for a night out on the town. Pierre Dulaine shines his black leather shoes while ghetto kid Rock (Rob Brown) primps in front of his bathroom mirror before needlessly taking off his button down shirt so that his alcoholic father can vomit on it. Pierre rides his bicycle to a dance function while Rock is refused admittance to his high school’s hip-hop party.

A couple of hoodlums taunt Rock into vandalizing the school principal’s car with a golf club before he’s seen committing the violent act by Pierre. This petty set-up allows Pierre to find Principal Augustine’s (Alfre Woodard) parking permit that he dutifully returns to the school the next day to give her.

The wobbly tone of the movie lies somewhere between teen comedy and drama with the emphasis on an inevitable clash of musical and dance styles. The well-dressed Pierre is challenged by Augustine’s cynicism toward his mannered nature in the context of her largely doomed student body. Pierre volunteers his dance teaching services for the delinquent kids relegated to after school detention. He finds his bicycle stripped for his altruistic efforts.

Before Pierre can teach his random batch of problem kids the names of the classical dances in the repertoire, they are busy mixing in freeform hip-hop dance steps. The students soon butcher standards like Gershwin’s "They Can’t Take That Away From Me" with hip-hop beats that create a musical fusion. All suspension of disbelief is jettisoned as the screenwriters, director, and choreographer press the untrained dancers toward a citywide dance competition that serves as the expected denouement of the movie.

The filmmakers proclaim that "Take The Lead" is "inspired by the life of Pierre Dulaine," but the subject's name seems utilized more to endorse a product that never earned his approval. As a dance movie "Take The Lead" is downright incompetent. As a feel-good teen drama/comedy it has no pathos or humor. It’s a throwaway movie.

Rated PG. 108 mins. 

MAD HOT BALLROOM

Welcome!

Groupthink doesn't live here, critical thought does. This ad-free website is dedicated to Agnès Varda and to Luis Buñuel. Punk heart still beating.

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Your kind generosity keeps the reviews coming!

Dancing Their Way To Academic Success                         
City Kids Compete With Their Grandparents’ Dances
By Cole Smithey

"ColeSmithey.com" is a testament to the elementary public school system of New York's five boroughs, to its kids and to the dance teachers of the American Ballroom Institute.

Teams of fourth and fifth grade girls and boys from Brooklyn, Tribeca and Washington Heights train to compete in a citywide dance contest as director Marilyn Agrelo reveals the personalities of the young students whose lives are enriched by their contact with each other and their teachers through ballroom dance.

The narrative (written by Amy Sewell) assembles toward its built-in trophy award climax with the teams performing five dances, the Fox Trot, Swing, Rumba, Tango and Meringue. Charming, poignant and festive "Mad Hot Ballroom" is an inspirational documentary that shows the power of dance to invigorate self-esteem and ambition in young hearts.

Part and parcel to the mesmerizing quality of the movie is the level of urban sophistication the children verbally articulate to one another regarding their hopes and opinions regarding their families and community. Faced with adverse societal pressures of poverty, drug abuse and broken homes the children naturally gravitate to the ritual of dance for the wealth of metaphorical life experience it offers.

Regardless of how clumsy the children seem when they first begin learning the same dances that their grandparents danced, there is a remarkable improvement in their physicality and attitudes that occurs as they hone their dance skills.

The teachers are notable for their heartfelt passion for instilling good manners and solid dance techniques in the children. These are the kind of teachers every parent would want their child to learn any subject from. The blossoming sense of sincere decency and respect that the children learn to express to one another through dance is instantly recognizable for its traditional nature that neutralizes racial and intimate anxiety.

The competitive nature of the of the dance finals presents a special challenge for the instructors to praise the efforts of the children while keeping the competition moving along toward the finalists groups.

Losing teams are praised for their diligent work with bronze and silver categories that are proudly announced as the children are given goodie bags that scarcely comfort them from their loss. In this way, the children learn to cope with life lessons of competitive rejection while keeping their self-esteem for the work that they’ve done.

A significant component to the film’s meta-subtext is the harmony that exists between the children who come from a wide spectrum of ethnic backgrounds. The kids are already socialized to a high degree of social tolerance that’s reinforced in the practice of dances that serve to display an idealized vision of multiethnic collaboration and communication.

The filmmakers wisely abstain from the crutch of voice-over narration and allow their subjects’ spontaneous reactions and behaviors to tell a multitude of stories that are glimpsed via the subtleties intrinsic in the physical communication of the circumstances.

Cinematographer Claudia Raschke compensates for the film’s schoolroom authentic fluorescent lighting by shooting the majority of movie from a low point-of-view that frames the children from their eye level or lower. In this way, the young dancers are presented as complete individuals engaging in a social activity with a rich tradition steeped in the music of jazz standards. When the movie climaxes with its outdoors-final competition, the joyous expressions on the proud parent’s faces compete with the impressive dancing by their handsome children.

The sustained inspiring effect of "Mad Hot Ballroom" stays with the audience long after the movie is over. Perhaps if our global world leaders had such occasion to compete against one another in an arena of Ballroom dance, they would have more empathy for other cultures when they were off of the dance floor. Regardless, the connotations stirred by this marvelous "little" movie are enormous.

Rated PG. 110 mins.