Sunday, April 16, 2006

A Movie Review: Take the Lead

We always go to all the dance movies. Last week we saw Take the Lead. It was a cold and rainy afternoon; perfect for going to the movies. Other people must have thought so too because the place was packed.

Take the Lead is a feel-good Cinderella story complete with a ball at the end. Antonio Banderas stars in the story that is loosely based on the life of Pierre Dulaine. Pierre started a program to teach ballroom dance to grade-schoolers in the NYC public school system. This movie follows the same premise with a program to teach high school kids in Chicago.

Pierre is riding his bike home from a dance when he witnesses some kids wacking away at a car with a nine iron. He picks up a parking pass that the kids drop as they run away. It turns out the car belongs to the principal of the local HS. While returning it, he hatches the idea to teach ballroom dancing at the school. The principal thinks he's nuts. She lets him try with the incorrigibles assigned to detention. The students in detention think he's an alien from another world. Through his persistence and love of dance he wins them over and inspires them to compete in a city wide ballroom dance competition.

The story line and plot development are good but predictable. It does have some great dance scenes. Doris really enjoyed it when Antonio Banderas demonstrated the Tango. A wonderful line from the movie described a tango as 'Sex on hardwood'.

This was a really good movie, especially for dancers and we highly recommend going to see it.

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