Cinematical

The universe contains a limited number of storylines, and I don't mind sitting through a familiar plot structure if the movie provides me with unique twists, snappy dialogue, or compelling or quirky characters. But Take the Lead offers nothing new. Any of us could extrapolate the entire plot from the movie poster alone, much less the trailer.

Take the Lead is allegedly based on the real-life experiences of dance instructor Pierre Dulaine. Dulaine worked on the choreography for this film, so he does in fact exist. However, I hope he is a more interesting, well-rounded person than this movie would lead us to believe.

In the movie, Dulaine (Antonio Banderas) witnesses a student from an urban high school committing an act of vandalism. He visits the school the next day and ends up offering his services as a dance instructor as a way of helping the underprivileged students. The principal, Augustine James (Alfre Woodard), puts him in charge of detention, on the grounds that nothing could be more punishing to the students than being subjected to ballroom dancing. Of course, it comes as a huuuuge surprise to everyone but Dulaine and the audience when the daily-detention crowd not only learns ballroom dancing, but Lessons About Life. And finally, a big contest takes place in which the street-smart minority kids compete against the snooty rich white kids.

I found the "life lessons" the film promotes to be somewhat sexist, which is surprising in a film written and directed by women (Dianne Houston and Liz Friedlander, respectively). The movie might be called Take the Lead, but only the men are allowed to take the lead on the dance floor. Despite a tagline on the movie's poster of "Never follow," the women are supposed to learn to follow the men. When student LaRhette (Yaya DaCosta) questions this, Dulaine tells her that a woman's power is in the choice of whether to follow, not in making decisions about where to lead. Is this supposed to apply only to the dance floor, or to the world at large? I wish one of the female students would have decided to take the lead, invented a charming feminist variation on ballroom dancing, and won the contest that way. The movie also implies that we all need to choose partners, and choose them wisely, in order to succeed in life. You can't dance alone in Dulaine's class. LaRhette cannot compete in the big waltz contest without her partner Rock (Rob Brown).

Promos for the movie give the impression that Dulaine and his involuntary students teach each other about their types of dance, and that the kids develop a revolutionary version of ballroom dancing that incorporates dance-club moves. This doesn't exactly happen. First, Dulaine is a catalyst rather than a real character: he doesn't change or grow in any discernable way. Second, although the kids do mix their music with Dulaine's ballroom standards during class, when they compete at the end of the movie, they dance in a traditional way to traditional music. The exception is the final competition tango number, which is a terrific dance number and also the one innovative, relatively subversive moment in the film.

Without revealing the ending, I will note that the competition was confusing and problematic. I didn't always understand who was competing for what, and if there were small awards for each type of dance, or one big award at the end. Was the tango the big contest? Was the waltz a contest at all? If you're going to include a big competition finale in a film, you should be more clear about what the stakes are ... even if your point is that the competition itself is not as important as everyone getting along and recognizing the wonders of diversity. Or else you should end the movie like the original The Bad News Bears, which has the best competition finale ever. I often recall The Bad News Bears when I watch movies like this, and although that film is flawed in many ways, other films suffer by comparison to its ending.

The student characters in Take the Lead weren't compelling, perhaps because the movie offered no suspense about their future. Despite the grim home situations, the safety of the kids never seemed to be in question. Unfortunately, audiences might be too jaded about the kids' backstories. An alcoholic dad, a prostitute mom, a dead brother who made fatal mistakes with the wrong crowd -- the stories have become cliches. Perhaps it would have been more effective not to directly show scenes from these kids' home lives, but to drop subtle hints and clues, and let us imagine how bad the situations are. The young actors performed well, but had weak material to work with.

The dancing is truly the best reason to watch Take the Lead. I normally enjoy watching Antonio Banderas, but his character only came to life during his dance numbers. In fact, the movie itself really came to life during the dance sequences. The audience at the screening I attended appeared to agree. They applauded both big tango numbers, but seemed subdued during other parts of the film.

Ultimately, Take the Lead feels like a product, with decisions made for audience appeal rather than creativity. Director Liz Friedlander's experience is primarily in music videos, and a lot of this movie plays like an extended music video. (Please note that I am not biased against all directors with music-video backgrounds: David Slade directed the suspenseful, un-video-like Hard Candy quite ably.) The combination of two types of music and dance seems cynically designed to attract two different demographic groups: older crowds with a big-name actor like Banderas and some big-band music, and younger crowds with an America's Next Top Model finalist (DaCosta) and hip-hop music. After all, who wouldn't get a kick out of a hip-hop mix of "I've Got Rhythm?" Add some stock supporting characters to generate laughs, and a bunch of platitudes ("You need to dance for yourself, not for anyone else") to impart a "meaningful message" ... you've got yourself a Hollywood movie. Why change what has worked for decades, after all?