Take The Lead
Basically a version of Stand And Deliver for the Dancing With The Stars crowd, this film can also be shown as what happens with Antonio Banderas when he winds up cast in a role that is perfect for him. As the real-life Pierre Dulaine, an upper-class dance teacher who volunteers to teach an inner-city detention class of total rejects the art of ballroom dancing, Banderas brings the suave charm that’s carried him through so many roles to something with genuine substance. Yes, we get the usual culture clashes when he tries to bring the music of Gershwin to the hip-hop / gangsta rap crowd, but Banderas manages to seamlessly interact with the younger actors to give the proceedings some spark. We also get to see some of the harsh realities of ghetto life as focused on the girl who raises her siblings while her mother works as a prostitute (and is nearly raped herself by a customer) and on the kid who works to support his alcoholic, drug-addicted parents before getting fired and having to turn to crime to make ends meet. These realities are emphasized by the character of the principal (Alfre Woodard) who feels that all the students (even the academically exceptional ones) need to be treated the same in order to overcome their dire circumstances. Sadly, the script has some trouble allotting equal character development time to each student, with some reduced to being shown walking down the street or standing in front of a subway entrance to show their lives outside school. This is especially evident with the character of Sasha (the ultra-gorgeous Jenna Dewan), who is little more than a glorified extra for most of the film but then takes center stage at the end for the big tango competition against the conceited blonde rich girl (Katya Virshilas) whom Banderas has been instructing for years. In other roles, Lauren Collins is cute as the rich little white girl who joins the ghetto kids because she feels more comfortable there and has a sweet friendship with a 450-lb black kid whom she eventually takes as her partner at her dance recital (note the shocked faces of the racist white people in attendance haha), and we even get Dante Basco (best remembered as Rufio back in Spielberg’s Hook) still playing a high school kid at 32 years of age. It’s nice to see that Banderas is supposed to be a widower so we don’t really get saddled with an unnecessary romantic subplot for him, and choice movie sleaze John Ortiz shows up as the asshole teacher who tries to get Banderas thrown out of school. Sadly, director Liz Friedlander just about blows it with the ending, with the kids competing in a formal ballroom dancing competition, in which one character shows up at the last minute to compete in standard cliché form, it’s never made clear to the viewer who actually won the competition, and finally the whole stuffy affair is turned into a raucous ghetto house party as the orchestra is cut off in favor of highly charged hip-hop, to the annoyance of almost no one but to the major detriment of any kind of realism or grounded storytelling. In the end, if you’re a fan of Banderas, ballroom dancing, and / or hip hop, check it out…
7/10