Movie Review Take the Lead

Take the Lead (2006) 

Directed by Liz Friedlander 

Written by Dianne Huston 

Starring Antonio Banderas, Rob Brown, Alfre Woodard 

Release Date April 7th, 2006

Published April 7th, 2006

The real life of Pierre Dulaine is one that should be honored with some variation of the nobel prize. While on the surface that may seem outrageous, Pierre Dulaine is merely a ballroom dance instructor. However, a closer examination shows that Mr. Dulaine's ballroom dance classes introduced to inner city New York classrooms returned more positively reinforced children and improved classmates than any after school activity in the history of New York schools.

His fight to bring culture to the classroom was ridiculed as frivolous and a waste of what limited resources schools had for their often troubled inner city students. Mr. Dulaine turned that around by demonstrating a unique ability to bring even the worst lost causes back to school on a daily basis. His care and hard work helped many kids discover a love for learning they never knew they had.

There may not be a Nobel prize for Pierre Dulaine but at the very least Hollywood has a loving treatment of his life in the new drama Take The Lead. Yes, this is a creaky little old school overcoming the odds drama but if anyone deserves a sickly sweet love letter its Pierre Dulaine.

In the inner city high schools of New York City teachers fight to save the kids they feel they can save and just hope the rest don't get killed. Years of underfunding, lack of security and just plain hopelessness will lead to the kind of defeatist attitudes that pervade these schools.

Thankfully Pierre Dulaine (Antonio Banderas) was never exposed to this systemic hopelessness. Pierre Dulaine is a ballroom dance instructor with his own high end studio and upper crust clientele. One night, while riding his bike home, Pierre comes in contact with Rock (Rob Brown) , a troubled kid who has just vandalized his Principal's car.

The principal is played by the terrific Alfre Woodard who skeptically receives a visit from Pierre Dulaine the following morning. Pierre is not here to rat out the student who destroyed her car. Rather, he wishes to offer his services as an instructor to any student willing to learn to dance.

The principal is ready to laugh Pierre out of her office before she remembers that she has no instructor for her detention. What harm can it do for her to let Pierre try and teach some of the school's most lost causes how to cha cha cha. Heck he probably won't last the afternoon.

Known as the school's rejects, the detention kids are a mixed group of street thugs, latch key kids and lost souls who have been told all their lives that they have no chance of escaping their surroundings. Ramos (Dante Basco), Lahrette (Yaya DaCosta), Monster (Brandon Andrews), Easy (Lyriq Bent) and Tina (Laura Benanti) are just a few of the kids the rest of the teachers have given up on.

Also in Mr. Dulaine's detention class is Rock who does not believe Pierre's appearance is a coincidence. Convinced Pierre is going to turn him in for his vandalism refuses to participate even as the rest of the class begins to come around to Pierre's passionate demonstrations.

Antonio Banderas is the linchpin of Take The Lead. His performance sells what is essentially a predictable, almost farcical inner city melodrama. With his usual smolder at a mere simmer, Banderas crafts a starring performance that is unlike anything he has delivered before.

Humble yet strong, charismatic without trying Banderas pays near perfect tribute to Pierre Dulaine.

The rest of the cast is good if undistinguished. As tends to happen with such large casts of young actors, names and faces get lost in the crowd. I can tell you that each dances incredibly well but beyond that, only the enigmatic Rob Brown really stands out.

I have been a fan of Rob Brown since his exceptional debut alongside Sean Connery in the underrated drama Finding Forrester. Brown needs to break the mold of the High School roles that have been his forte since Forrester, including another terrific performance in 2005's Coach Carter. One of these days Rob Brown will take a role that is not another High School coming of age story and he will become a major star.

Take The Lead was directed by rookie director Liz Friedlander, a music video veteran. The music video experience likely explains why only the dance scenes really jump off the screen while much of the drama is clumsy. Friedlander and screenwriter Dianne Houston fumble Pierre's introduction which is supposed to deliver his motivation for teaching these kids. 

This forces some fancy footwork, pun intended, by Banderas to make the character work. It is a tribute to Banderas that he rescues much of the film from a number of similar mistakes. Mistakes that include a thinly drawn villain character, a fellow teacher, whose reasons for hating Mr. Dulaine and his dance classes are merely the contrivance of the plot.

I'm not saying that Take The Lead is a very good movie, actually it's just barely a good movie. I am saying that because of Antonio Banderas, Rob Brown and the real life Pierre Dulaine, there is a great deal about Take The Lead that works.

As a tribute to a man who deserves a tribute, see Take The Lead and be inspired by the spirit of Pierre Dulaine.

Movie Review: K-Pax

K-Pax (2001) 

Directed by Iain Softley 

Written by Charles Leavitt 

Starring Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges, Alfre Woodard, Mary McCormack

Release Date August 13th, 2001 

Published November 1st, 2001 

Kevin Spacey is one our finest actors having created such enduring characters as American Beauty's Lester Burnham, Seven's John Doe, and the unforgettable Verbal Kint in The Usual Suspects (My personal favorite). But no matter how great the actor, he can't get it right every time. Need I remind you of Pay it Forward, and now with K-Pax Spacey has struck out again. High hopes still persist for his role in The Shipping News in December.

You can't blame Spacey entirely for the failure of K-Pax -- director Iain Softley and the screenwriter must share equal blame. They seemed to approach the film with no idea how they would resolve it which leaves the audience with an ending so unsatisfying it collapses any interesting elements the film had built to that point.

K-Pax is the story of Prot (Spacey) a man who's either an alien or a mental patient. Prot is picked up by police at the scene of a mugging after babbling about not being from Earth. He is placed in a mental institution where Dr. Mark Powell (Jeff Bridges, in the film's best performance) treats him. K Pax is at its best when Bridges and Spacey go one on one with Bridge's doctor attempting to logically ascertain why this seemingly brilliant man thinks he is an alien. 

The film's other scenes are less interesting featuring your typical cast of loony bin loonies such as the germophobe, the mean one, and the patient who could leave the hospital if someone would treat him with love instead of medicine. Of course Prot will redeem them and these scenes are lifted from the Patch Adams scrap heap though slightly elevated by Spacey's presence. 

Jeff Bridge's performance nearly saves K Pax his search for Prot's true identity is well played with the right amount of emotional impact. Bridges is stringing together one of the most under-appreciated resumes in the business with brilliant turns in The Contender, The Big Lebowski and Fearless. If all of K-Pax were as good as he is, K-Pax could have been one of the best films of the year.

As for Spacey, Prot is a nearly impossible character who's required to be quirky because all aliens are quirky, and he's required to be psychologically damaged and then be a saint. That's a lot of work. In the end the director refuses to give the audience any catharsis by not answering the film's big question, one I won't print because I don't want to spoil it. The ending is left open either for a sequel or to offer the audience the opportunity to write their own ending, but intelligent moviegoers may be annoyed with the mystery. I know I was.

Movie Review Radio

Radio (2003)

Directed by Michael Tollin 

Written by Mike Rich 

Starring Cuba Gooding Jr, Ed Harris, Alfre Woodard, Debra Winger, Sarah Drew 

Release Date October 24th, 2003 

Published October 25th, 2003

Writer-Director-Producer Michael Tollin seems to aspire to mediocrity. A cursory look at his resume shows just that, a string of mediocre films as both a director and a producer. He has a particular affinity for the most mediocre of genres, the sports movie. With his partner, Brian Robbins, Tollin was a part of the predictable football movie Varsity Blues, the lame and predictable baseball movie Hardball and the God-awful Freddie Prinze Jr. movie Summer Catch. The latest addition to the Tollin-Robbins sports pantheon is Radio, a cloying tearjerker that hits all the manipulative notes.

The film stars Cuba Gooding Jr. as a mentally challenged man named Radio, a nickname given to him by Coach Harold Jones, the coach of the local High School football team. Coach decides to help out Radio after finding some of his players harassing the poor guy. Coach makes Radio a part of the team, allowing him to take part in practices and eventually allowing him into the school and classes.

Radio's involvement with the team and the school is good for him but is met with some resistance by a local booster Frank Clay (Chris Mulkey), who doesn't like Radio because, well, because he's just mean. That is really the only reason the movie gives for his unnecessarily rude behavior toward Radio who everyone else in town loves.

S. Epatha Merkerson turns up in the unforgiving role of Radio's mother whose fate is foretold from her first appearance onscreen. The rest of the supporting cast is less than memorable. Debra Winger is nearly unrecognizable in the role of the coach's wife, and young Sarah Drew in her first live action film role (she did voice work on TV's Daria) is not bad as the coach's oft-forgotten daughter.

Ed Harris is the only real asset of the film. His stature and dignity infuse his role with more credibility than it deserves. As written, the character is rather wishy-washy liberal do-gooder but with Harris in the role, the character has more weight and the melodramatic script is improved with his presence and delivery.

As for Gooding, just add Radio to the growing list of roles that have marked his career's death spiral since his Oscar winning role in Jerry Maguire. I've written way too much about Gooding's self destruction and it's getting harder and harder to watch. Jerry Maguire continues to be one of my all time favorites and Gooding was a huge part of that. However, the goodwill he earned from his role as Rod Tidwell is completely gone and his presence in any film is becoming unwelcome.

As for Tollin and his producing partner Brian Robbins, Radio shows little improvement over their previous mediocre outings. While it's billed as a true story and there is a real man named Radio who lives for high school football in South Carolina, the movie of his life never once rings true. Rather it is the same market-tested family drama that is better left to Hallmark Hall of fame.

Movie Review: Beauty Shop

Beauty Shop (2005) 

Directed by Billie Woodruff

Written by Kate Lanier

Starring Queen Latifah, Alicia Silverstone, Alfre Woodard, Mena Suvari, Kevin Bacon, Djimon Hounsou 

Release Date March 30th, 2005

Published March 30th, 2005 

Ever since her breakthrough role and Oscar nomination with 2002's Chicago, Queen Latifah has struggled to find material worthy of her talent.  Chicago has led to a string of awful movies like Cookout, Taxi, and Bringing Down The House, the latter being the only hit of the bunch and arguably the worst of them. None of these awful films, however, has dimmed the Queen's star presence. She is still a welcome presence onscreen even if her movies don't do her talent injustice.

The latest example of Queen Latifah's star presence, the Barbershop spinoff Beauty Shop, is yet another bad movie where Queen Latifah outshines bad material.

In Barbershop 2 Queen Latifah introduced the character of Gina, beauty shop owner who had the guts and talent to go toe to toe with Cedric The Entertainer's cantankerous old man, Eddy. In Beauty Shop Gina has packed up her talent and attitude and headed for Atlanta where she works at an upscale salon and hopes to soon open her own shop.

Her boss is your typically effeminate diva stylist, Jorge Christophe (a nearly unrecognizable Kevin Bacon with a faux Euro-trash accent). Jorge constantly dumps his work off on Gina who earns the trust and loyalty of his clients because of her talent. However when Jorge criticizes Gina in front of the entire salon, saying that he "owns her ass", Gina quits.

With the help of family, friends and an especially easy to please bank loan officer, Gina buys a run down beauty shop in a questionable part of town. The shop comes equipped with a noisy neighbor/potential love interest (Djimon Hounsou), bad electricity and a staff of oddball stylists not used to Gina's more upscale tastes. Among her new employees are the former owner, the Maya Angelou quoting Miss Josephine (Alfre Woodard, looking uncomfortable in this rare comedic role), Chanel (Golden Brooks) the requisite attitude problem or more precisely the bitch, and Ida (Sherry Shepherd) the dim witted one.

Thankfully also coming along with Gina from Jorge's is a talented stylist named Lynn (Alicia Silverstone, stymied with a bad southern accent), the one white girl in an all black shop. Lynn naturally is at the center of much of the film's uncomfortable racial humor.  On the bright side for Gina, some of the upscale clients from Jorge's have followed her, including the sweet natured Terri (Andie McDowell) and the bitchy Joanne (Mena Suvari).

The film's plot centers on finances as the shop, as it was in the Barbershop movies, is constantly in dire financial straits. Everything is falling apart, the electricity is bad and a nasty building inspector seems to have it out for Gina. That said, though, the plot is very much secondary to the interaction of this over-the-top group of characters and is not the film's strong point.

The one thing the film has going for it is the star presence and charisma of Queen Latifah whose common sense straight man never really gels with the caricatures that surround her. That is certainly not Latifah's fault.  She seems dead on throughout, especially in her romance with Djimon Hounsou's character, Joe. Though Hounsou never seems comfortable with the comedic part of his role, he does know how to handle the quiet romantic scenes and had they been given the chance these two actors could have done something very interesting.

Unfortunately there are too many other things going on in Beauty Shop for Queen Latifah and Djimon Hounsou to really connect. Music video Director Bille Woodruff (Honey with Jessica Alba) is too caught up with his quirky characters to give Latifah the attention she deserves. Queen Latifah is radiant and funny and a director with more imagination than Mr. Woodruff might have forgotten about trying to make Barbershop 3 and focused the film on Gina and her romance with Joe.

I really cannot say enough nice things about Queen Latifah, it's a shame that the producers of Beauty Shop did not like her as much as me. If they did, they might have forgotten about cloning the Barbershop movies around her and instead allowed the story to focus more on romantic comedy and less on rehashed characters and jokes. Queen Latifah deserves better and we in the audience especially deserve better.