It’s Sunday night, 12:30 a.m., and I’m pretty tired. I might actually get to bed at a decent hour so I can wake up early and kick off our new, 9 a.m. posting schedule. I sure am a rational, responsible human being, aren’t I?
UH OH!! “Take The Lead” is on HBO2. I’m not going anywhere until I find out if Antonio Banderas can succeed in teaching helpless but secretly brilliant inner-city kids to ballroom dance. They’re in the inner-city!!! Inner!!! This will never work!!! Or will it??? It can’t, ballroom dancing is not popular in the inner-city!!! Or is it??? What will happen??? Ahhhh!!!!!!
Why We Forgot This Movie Existed: Because this same movie gets made about twice every single god damned year.
One Scene In The Movie Worth Remembering: On the third day of Incredulous Ballroom class, the kids are dancing intensely and passionately to their crazy street music, and when Banderas plays his old ballrooom records and explains why they’re no different, Rufio from “Hook” puts the street music back on, and every single kid immediately springs back into crazy urban dancing. The lesson here is, every black or hispanic high school kid is actually Bernie from the second “Weekend At Bernie’s” movie, and any time remotely modern dance music is played, they magically, irresistably break into adpet dancing regardless of where they are.
Most Inexplicable Scene: Toss up between Seth Green Lite showing up at Banderas’ home to tell him he’s falling in love with his hefty African-American dance partner, or Rock, the hard-working but misunderstood thug character, having second thoughts and shooting a huge crate that somehow stops the vague crime his gang was committing, getting beaten up by the head gang member, then showing up to the big dance competition just in time for the Waltz. For a fluff premise, “Take The Lead” sure does manage to cram in about thirteen superfluous, unresolved subplots — how am I supposed to go on living my life without knowing if dorky, selfconscious white chick ends up marrying Monster, the huge, clumsy-but-gentlemanly black kid?? Answer: I CAN’T.
Biggest Lie: In the trailer, the voiceover claims “When his skill meets their passion, a new style is born.” A ‘new style’ is never born, nor mentioned, in the entire movie, and the final scene involves the kids at a ballroom dancing competition dancing completely standard dances. Clearly, whoever cut the trailer just watched eight seconds of the film and saw a guy in a suit talking to inner-city kids and thought “he’s probably skilled, and all urban youths are very ‘passionate,’ so I’m sure the last scene in the movie is a big choreographed rap/waltz combo that knocks the monocles out of the white judges’ eyes.”
Biggest Disappointment: Only two instances of Antonio Banderas humorously employing street slang?? Besides telling a kid “oh, I geet plenty off play” and joking that “I don’t see any rejects in this class… maybe a few punkaisses”, Banderas pretty much avoids the urban dialect altogether. Did Hollywood drop its requirement of white people trying to say black things once every ten minutes in any racial-crossover movie? I guess between this movie and The Man, the cosmos of racial hilarity was balanced.
Take The Lead By The Numbers:
Forgettability Factor: 7
Ironic Humor: 4
Number Of Times I Said To My Roommate “Why Do These People Live / Go To School In The Movie ‘Saw’”? : 17
Number Of Subplots Satisfactorily Concluded: 3 out of 195
Amount Of Sympathy Felt For Antonio Banderas During Sad Montage After He Fails To Successfully Get The Kids On Board With Ballroom Dancing After The First Eight-Minute Session: Tons
Bottom Line: Besides the absurdly exaggerated stuffy announcer character during the final ballroom competition and the overwhelming sentiment that these kids would never, ever, ever give a sh*t about ballroom dancing (which kind of puts a damper on the premise), there isn’t a whole lot to laugh at in this mostly forgettable “based on a true story” false story. The dancing isn’t exceptional or entertaining, the gritty “tough life at home” scenes are actually semi-legit, and Banderas doesn’t phone in his performance enough to generate any “I can’t believe that’s the take they had to use” moments. If you’re looking for a total piece of crap to laugh at and make fun of, I wouldn’t recommend this one too highly.
Oh — Alfre Woodard is in it too. But you knew that already.
