Take The Lead

*


Way back, sometime between the fall of Troy and the birth of Fred and Ginger, ball room dancing was invented. In Take The Lead we never learn why, or exactly how, but what we do learn is that one man can save a film from total disaster if he uses every bit of charisma he possesses and wears really tight pants.

This first directorial effort by music video veteran, Liz Friedlander, is so pathetically Hollywood that it loses what good story intention it may have started with. Its all been done before, and better, in film’s like To Sir With Love and any number of other school-room genre dramas that didn’t have the benefit of great music. Take The Lead

The film opens when Dulaine approaches a principle (Alfre Woodard) with a plan to teach ballroom at her school. What transpires to get him to this point we never learn, but he does convince her, and so starts his journey. Of course, she gives him the worst of the worst to teach and after they steal his bicycle and tease him unmercifully he has a breakthrough where he actually gets them all to dance. Really, it’s that totally captivating and suspenseful. Finally, there is a surprise ending. If you guessed a ballroom competition, where the poor inner-city kids- who’ve had a total of five weeks dance instruction- beat a bunch of rich white kids who’ve been dancing ball room all their lives, you’re wrong. It’s a tie. Whew, don’t you feel better?

As hackneyed as the storyline is, I can’t blame the actors. There are some credible performances, wonderful music, and of course there is the continued display of ball room as an art form that bridges generations and cultures. In the past I’ve reviewed Shall We Dance and Mad Hot Ballroom, and I’ve seen the original Japanese version, Shall We Dance U several times, all are better in nearly every category. If you just have to see this one, wait until it’s at the dollar theater. In fact wait until it’s fifty-cent day at the dollar theater. Of course it would be best is to skip the movie completely, save your pennies and buy the soundtrack.

If you like the- good teacher comes to a bad school and makes a difference- storyline, my suggestion is last year’s release, The Choir. This quiet drama takes place right after World War II in the French countryside. Here, a newly hired music teacher takes on a group of young boys, some orphans, some local delinquents and forms a choir. His primary conflict is less with the children than with the system they’ve been placed in. Eventually he leaves and seems to fade into obscurity, but the contribution he’s made will lasts a lifetime. This film has heart, credibility good acting and is fairly well written. You will not waste your time with this musical piece. is very loosely based on the story of Pierre Dulaine (Antonio Banderas), a Spanish/French ballroom dance instructor, in New York, who brought ballroom dance to the city school system. But, this story is much better told in last years documentary Mad Hot Ballroom where the characters, and their seemingly inescapable inner-city lives, are real.