Customer Reviews

Take the Lead

5 star:		(51)
4 star:		(39)
3 star:		(22)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I agree with many of the reviewers that "Take the Lead" could have benefitted with more dance and less "action". I agree that the plotline's been done before....inspirational teacher arrives at a tough school in a tough situation, is initially mistrusted by a cast of student characters, and prevails because he/she really cares to show up, to teach, and to provide an example and inspiration to the students. Yeah, Sidney Poitier did it, yeah, Michelle Pfeiffer did it, Robin Williams - but still, the story of Pierre Dulaine is real, and it is compelling. And the current ballroom dance "craze" allowed it to be brought to the screen.

Banderas always brings it to his films. He's somewhat of a caricature; the hot, smoky Spaniard with the true heart. I choose to believe his public persona, that he's like this in real life, as well. Banderas is more than fine as Pierre Dulaine - he has a light, believable touch. He inspires. It feels as though making this movie was not just another job, another role to him. I think that quality in Banderas is like the indefinable charm that Hugh Jackman brings to a role....and it's why they're as successful on stage as they are on screen. They're living it.

His student cast - a permanent, multicultural cast of detention junkies (why Yaya Dacoste as LahRette is in detention is anybody's guess), including Rob Brown as Rock (he was good here, fantastic in Finding Forrester), is quirky but endearing (yes, that's a tired clich?, from movies and TV as well).

Dulaine's got a somewhat successful dance studio; he's a widower, his life is busy but not full and these kids strike a chord with him. There's a little mix of hip hop with his ballroom in the classroom, but by far the most fascinating scene in the film takes place at the final competition, when dancer Jenna Dewan (a bit player in the saga of the romantic life of Justin Timberlake) heats up the floor dancing the tango with not ONE, but two partners (small role successes Lyriq Bent, as Easy and Dante Basco, who has big screen potential galore, as Ramos). This trio absolutely makes the audience, both in the film and in seats in the theater stand up and cheer for a sensuous, serious and memorable dance sequence.

I loved both Japanese and American versions of "Shall We Dance?", I was mad for "Mad Hot Ballroom", I even own the DVD of Vanessa Williams' and Chayanne's hot and sexy "Dance With Me" which aired out Latin Ballroom Dancing well before the current film and TV craze. And I loved, "Take the Lead", as well. Formulaic, yes, a little misdirected by first time film director Liz Friedlander, but still a great movie for dance-lovers, and, similar to "Shall We Dance?" and "Dance With Me", it will be a popular DVD for a wider audience.

4 Stars!

If I had to describe this movie, I'd call this a mix between the basics of Dirty Dancing : Havana Nights (it combines different types of dancing, Take the lead mixes hip hop and ballroom dancing) and Dangerous minds/Sister Act 2 (in the way the teacher tries to inspire students).

The movie is based on a true story. Mr.Dulane (Antonio Banderas), a ballroom dancer with his own teaching studio, decides to become a detention supervisor in an inner-city school, and then to inspire and teach these kids trust and hope (among others) through ballroom dancing. In exchange, of course, these kids teach him a little something as well. Antonio Banderas is great and is believeable as a ballroom dancer/teacher. The supporting cast also helps carry the movie and does an amazing job.

I really enjoyed this movie. It's an inspirational story, but it also manages to keep clear of corniness and still be entertaining thanks to Banderas' great performance, but also in large part thanks to the dancing and the mix of different styles of music. There's funny parts, there are dramatic parts, it has all the makings of a good movie, and it succeeds, even though I thought it lost its pace once or twice, but nothing the movie doesn't recover from.
I also liked the fact that while it reaches wide audiences, it also has an underlying message, criticizing today's society for setting up a certain outcasting of inner-city schools. But not to worry, the movie has no political agenda, it's all underlying. It's an inspirational movie that's made for entertaining the audience, not beating them on the head with criticism, and in that sense the movie does exactly what it's meant to do.

I highly recommend this movie. (And if you enjoyed this one, you'll probably enjoy "Save The Last Dance", and vice-versa)

Inspired by a true story, this film does not make a saint out of the main character who does make a few missteps as he judges people without really knowing them at times, but his heart is in the right place. Except for Banderas and Woodard who are stars in their own right and perform well here, this film is also dominated by a number of unknowns who are very convincing in their roles. This film does not shy away from the tragedies some of these inner city youths experience everyday of their lives as we witness one girl nearly assualted by a "customer" of her prostitute mother and one boy who witnessed his brother's death and his father's descent into alcoholism. None of these are pretty pictures and none of these problems are solved at the end of the film.

In addition, a fair commentary is made about the way many view our education system both by the public and those in the system. In this film that commentary is embodied in a math teacher who won't cover his after school detention time as he views those kids as losers not worthy of his time and he'd rather be teaching kids that care about what he has to say. How sad that is. I have been teaching for 16 years now and while I enjoy it, I don't do it because my "audience" cares. Wow, that sounds like an awfully big ego trip to only want to teach to the elite of the school; I hate to admit that I know such teachers. One thing I've learned in my time in education is that the moment students (any child) say that they don't need you, then that's when they need you the most. Ironically, this very same teacher turns in the principal later for conducting the dance classes instead of trying to teach the students. Hmmmm . . . Didn't he say they weren't worthy of being taught?

EVERYONE is entitled to a good education, even those that don't know its value yet (heck, they're kids, right?). We can't select who is worthy and throw out the rest. The film certainly gets preachy about this, however, the film's major theme of finding one's self-respect and giving respect to others offers hope to these youths. It is an uplifting story inspite of its obvious flaws.

The concept of taking the gentility of ballroom dancing with all the skills and discipline it requires and using that as a means of changing young people who are floating aimlessly toward possible destruction is a sound one, as evidenced in this 'biography' of the life of Pierre Dulaine. Unfortunately the topic is overused to the point of becoming a ho-hum script gimmick and that is unfortunate. There are many things to like about this film, but the script and direction manage to go for sellout at the end, ruining what otherwise could have been a tender film.

Antonio Banderas plays Dulaine, a man with a void in his life which changes when he encounters a highschool lad Rock (Rob Brown) destroying the highschool principal's car: Principal Augustine James (Alfre Woodard) is a hard-nosed disciplinarian whose heart is in the right place but who alienates her students, creating the need for a Detention Hall. Dulaine approaches James with the idea of teaching the tough kids ballroom dancing while they are in detention and after some thought, James goes for it. Dulaine is faced with unbelieving and disrespectful students, which he eventually wins over on terms that show respect for their potential and the ballroom dancing begins - a competition just happens to be in the offing!

The young cast is fairly strong, with some actors such as Yaya DaCosta, Jenna Dewan, Jasika Nicole, Dante Basco, Brandon D. Andrews, and Marcus T. Paulk being particularly fine. The girls are the dancers here and they steal the show. The problems with the script are with the choices of emphasis: we know little about Dulaine and too much about incidental kids. But the message is clear. The movie begins well, sags in the middle, and then just when there is the big finish, the story about the influence of ballroom dancing, etiquette, and pride disintegrates into a rather meaningless and long hip-hop session on a formal dance floor. Banderas and Woodard try to hold it together. Grady Harp, August 06

I'm not much in to the 'hip hop' aspect of this plot, but the story is more than just this. Antonio plays a dance teacher who owns his own studio teaching ballroom dance to rich kids. He comes to realize that troubled inner-city kids might benefit greatly from "what dancing has to teach them."

In one of the pivotal moments in the film he explains how dancing teaches these young kids how to be considerate to their partners. To give and receive what their partner needs from them. It teaches them how to be generous and decent to each other. It also shows the students what they might achieve if they apply themselves to something.

I cannot dance at all, but I think that inside this "underdog learns to fly" premise are real values. Honest feeling.

Antonio also brings a lot of self-respect to this character. He is fantastic as the dignified gentleman. I wish I had half of his style. I found that I enjoyed this movie more than I expected to.

Overly plotted, sloppily directed, but utilizing some passable dance sequences, Take The Lead won't show you anything new that you haven't seen in the documentary Mad Hot Ballroom or even on Fox's You Think You Can Dance. Alfie Woodard and Antonio Banderas indeed save this movie, which is full of clichéd characters and middling dance music cornball.

The movie starts off well, combining the world of privilege and elegant ballroom dancing with the frantic world and survival mode existence of rough and tough inner-city high school students. Banderas plays Pierre Dulaine, a man who believes in the transformative power of art, and so he volunteers to teach ballroom dancing at a tough, inner-city high school in New York.

Dulaine seems a bit out of place to say the least; his ideas are at once ridiculed by teachers and students - particularly by the hard-bitten, cynical school principal (Woodard). As a form of punishment, he's given the job of supervising detention hall. No one expects the kids to let alone listen to him. They protest and give him attitude but they learn, nonetheless and actually begin to enjoy the dancing.

Take the Lead would have been much more compelling - and probably a much better film - if there were just more dancing. There's one spectacular tango that Banderas does with one of his ritzy, upper Westside students, but most of the foot action consists of a strange hybrid of ballroom and hip-hop style, which doesn't quite work.

Most annoying are the endless subplots of Rock (Rob Brown) and Lahrette (Yaya DaCosta), two of the group who are basically good kids trying to survive terrible home lives. Furthermore, we never get a clear sense of why Dulaine is doing this, he lost his wife five years previously and he's obviously a little tired of coaching privileged white kids, but his decision to teach these mostly black, marginalized kids lacks isn't made that clear.

Then there's the love triangle, the teacher who wants Dulaine removed from the school, the dangerous john, the sick dad, Rock's flirtation with crime, the worried debutante, her mother, her mother's reputation and the all-white dance judges. And it all becomes a bit much, especially as the film wears on for nearly two hours. Given the shallowness of their roles, the performers are all fine, and believable - even if some aspects of the movie are not.

Banderas as usual is smoldering and sexy - although in some scenes he's starting to look a little long in the tooth. Nevertheless he does a good job of portraying a prim, proper and chivalrous European gentleman who sweeps these disenfranchised kids up by giving them a new lease on life and showing them how to relate to one another through the power of dance. Mike Leonard September 06.

Yes, you've seen the plot a million times and it breaks no ground there. But it is a very entertaining and thoughtful movie with fine acting. I went to see this film on a particularly hot and humid evening, to get out of the heat. After the movie, I noticed a group of kids from teenaged to toddler, dancing their way out of the theatre, imitating what they'd seen on screen. This was definitely not a waste of time.

Antonio Banderas stars as the real-life person Pierre Dulane, who apparently taught ballroom dancing in the New York public school system. As much a modern fairy tale as anything, TAKE THE LEAD is entirely unbelieveable from start to finish, the fault of the film's writers who could have make the story much more plausible. This must be a condensed and fictionalized version of Mr. Dulane's efforts to teach ballroom dancing to ghetto kids. Too bad they didn't wish to tell the real story; it would have been much more interesting I think. There is only one good ballroom dance scene in TAKE THE LEAD, a magnificently choreographed tango danced by Mr. Banderas and one of his uptown students. The rest of the film's dancing and music, in the main, is hip hop. It is significant that the soundtrack CD for TAKE THE LEAD does not have the splendid tango music for the tango Mr. Banderas danced. Now that is a real shame; instead, the album CD is mostly rap music. The script for this film is torn between telling a dance story and a bros-in-the-hood tale and suffers for it. You wonder at Mr. Banderas patience with the miscreants he is asked to teach, who are disrespectful and sullen. Yet, the real-life Dulane must have been a remarkable man and we should salute him for his efforts. Let's make TAKE THE LEAD a salute to Mr. Dulane.

A movie, someone once said--correctly--is mainly an emotional experience. If it isn't that, you wasted your money. This one here was, for reasons I'm still trying to figure out.

As a dance-phobic I went to see this flick to do something nice for and with my wife. A Sunday evening with some light-hearted fare, taking a break from an overly hectic schedule of things-to-do. Also, I happen to like Antonio Banderas, who is on my list of 'leading men' type actors with depth; without taking themselves too preciously serious.

Anyway, if 'emotional experience' is the measure of a movie's quality, this one deserves full marks. Whatever it was that made it, it worked. That it should be 'based on a true story'--a concept I've yet to come to grips with--is a nice bonus, but it would have worked quite without that. It was a classic example of 'nice', and not in an insipid, but an entertaining and thoroughly enjoyable manner.

'Feel good'is probably an accurate description, but I, for one, don't mind; and neither, unsurprisingly, did my wife.

Highly recommended for those--even dance-phobes like me--who just want to spend an enjoyable couple of hours. Just sit back and let it work its magic.

Till Noever, owlglass.com

I loved this movie. Who cares about what it is trying to say. Loved the dancing. Antonio Banderas tango was just beautiful. Worth watching again and again.