Review: Footloose

Bostonian teen Kenny Wormald moves to Bomont, Georgia to live with his Aunt and Uncle (Kim Dickens and Ray McKinnon) after the death of his mother. Bomont is a somewhat conservative town which three years ago banned unsupervised public dancing for minors and playing loud music, as well as imposing a curfew on minors. This was in the wake of an horrific alcohol-related car accident that killed several teens, including the son of the town’s well-respected preacher, Rev. Moore (Dennis Quaid). Former gymnast and dancer Wormald quickly sets his sights on the Rev’s rebellious daughter (Julianne Hough), whilst also challenging the town’s laws about dancing. Miles Teller plays the country bumpkin whom Wormald befriends and also teaches to dance. Patrick John Flueger is Hough’s abusive, a-hole boyfriend, Ziah Colon is Hough’s best pal, and Andie MacDowell is her mother and the Rev’s wife.

 

The good news is this 2011 remake from writer-director Craig Brewer (“Hustle and Flow”, the terrific “Blake Snake Moan”) isn’t much different from the beloved 1984 original. The bad news is...well, have you watched the original in the last fifteen years or so? Yeah, so maybe there is no good news after all. The soundtrack is still great, the acting isn’t bad, but the story just doesn’t work (I also prefer watching Jennifer Beals dance to Kevin Bacon, sorry but it’s true). I don’t even think the story was terribly plausible in 1984, either. It seemed more indicative of the 1950s and Elvis the Pelvis to me. In this remake Brewer tries his best to cover for this absurd story of a hick town banning loud music, teenagers out after curfew, and dancing. I admire the ballsy opening of following up a rousing dancing session set to the Kenny Loggins title track (played again at the end by country crooner Blake Shelton in rather respectful fashion) with a car accident. It takes the wind out of the audience, who were just about set for a fun time. It does not, however make this story any less dumb-arse, and I just don’t understand what appeal it had to a normally interesting filmmaker like Brewer. I don’t want to call him a sell-out, but it sure looks like it, because the film doesn’t offer anything deep. That would be fine if not for the fact that it’s so stupid and clichéd, in addition to being a remake of an MTV-era bubblegum film. It’s actually weaker than the original, if you ask me. Look, maybe I have it wrong. Maybe some of you will tell me that hick bible-belt towns like this still exist, but I didn’t buy it as presented to me by Brewer. I didn’t believe Dennis Quaid’s humourless preacher banning everybody’s fun anymore than I believed Wormald’s fake-arse Bah-stan accent (weird that he actually is from Boston apparently), or that kids in 2011 would listen to Quiet Riot’s brilliant headbanger ‘Metal Health (Bang Your Head)’ or Deniece Williams’ infectious ‘Let’s Hear it for the Boy’. The only place you hear those songs (outside of my house) these days is in the movies. Just ‘coz they were in the original, doesn’t mean they work in 2011. I know Brewer kinda had to include them, but he didn’t need to make the movie at all if you ask me.

 

Poor Dennis Quaid hasn’t got a chance in the preacher role, and he plays it like he completely disagrees with his character’s beliefs and actions. The character was a bit over-the-top in the original, but at least you couldn’t say John Lithgow was miscast in the role. Quaid just seems to have too much of a laidback, easygoing presence on screen and isn’t right for the part, and there’s something indefinable in his performance that suggests he knows it (Eventually Brewer seems to realise it too and lets the character off a lot easier than Lithgow was afforded). Sure, Lithgow is capable of being affable on screen, but Quaid (a good and charming actor in the right role) simply doesn’t speak bible-thumping, rock ‘n’ roll-hating preacher to me, and giving him a rationale behind his behaviour seemed tacked-on and contrived to me. Lithgow I could see hating rock music, but Quaid? Didn’t he play Jerry Lee Lewis once? I don’t blame Quaid if he didn’t believe in his character. There’s some really wonky logic going on. He and several other of the town’s adults have a supposed opposition to ‘certain kinds of music’, and based on one remark from the school principal, I’m gonna suggest they’re talking about hip-hop. Here’s the problem, though. Not even the film’s few African-American characters seem to be particularly into that thar hippity hop music. Hell, one of the film’s biggest dance routines and musical interludes is a boot scootin’ boogie (not sure whether the aforementioned African-American characters were present in this scene, though). This is Hicksville USA, not to mention a town that banned dancing and loud music several years back. I doubt Jay-Zed (Shut up, it’s Zed, not Zee!) and Snoopy Doggy Woggy are very much in this public’s discourse (though some of the dancing is probably hip-hop influenced). In fact, the Patrick Flueger character is anything but a hippity hop guy yet it doesn’t stop him from Chris Browning a girl at one point. Even heavy metal is unlikely to be on most of these people’s radars, as it’s outsider Wormald who listens to Quiet Riot. This seemed like a major oversight to me, because the music in the film seemed pretty old-fashioned and non-controversial to my ears (Brewer even throws in some of his beloved blues). Do people even boot scoot anymore? The closest we get to hip-hop is a DJ doing his best to ruin Kenny Loggins’ title track at the beginning of the film by talking over it.

 

The problems don’t end there, however. Brewer’s casting of two dancers in the lead roles has mixed success. Wormald looks a bit like a young Johnny Depp and is generally OK in the Kevin Bacon role. It’s not like Bacon was back in 84 the talent he is now, and Wormald is certainly more talented and charismatic than say, Taylor Lautner and Robert Pattinson. He also doesn’t give you any indication that I could see that he’s a dancer attempting to act. He’s no De Niro by a long shot, but he’s not amateurish or lost at sea, either. But Julianne Hough? Oh dear lord. Putting aside the fact that the supposedly mid-20s Hough looks to be at least 32 (I know I’m not the first to say this, so I don’t feel so bad picking on her) in most scenes, she has a completely irritating screen presence. Whether it’s her constant hip-swaying strut as though she’s looking for her pole, or her similarly ever-present ‘I’m so hot’ smile, the girl appears to not have a humble bone in her tiny body. I’m not sure whether it’s because she comes from a dance background, but everything about her is so calculated, choreographed, and self-absorbedly attention-seeking. If she’s to have a future in movies, I suggest someone tells her that there’s a difference between acting out a part in a dance routine and movie acting. I’m no expert on either, but from what I do know, the former seems to require the audience to pay very close attention to everything Hough is doing, whereas in acting, it’s usually the case that you’re trying to seem natural, not giving a performance even though you actually are. So I found Hough’s every moment on screen excruciating, whether she can dance or not. Perhaps she wanted her character to come across that way, perhaps she’s a self-absorbed person in real-life (she certainly seems to think she’s hot on the basis of her performance here), or perhaps she just has a lot to learn about acting in film.

 

Brewer has perhaps tried to cover for his leads’ lack of acting experience by throwing in a few ‘real’ actors, but of those, only an amusing Ray McKinnon really registers positively. He and the likeable Miles Teller (in the part played originally by the late Chris Penn) give the best performances in the film, though Kim Dickens has one fine scene as well. Andie MacDowell gets very little time in the Dianne Wiest part, but given I find MacDowell an awful actress (despite shockingly having 30 years experience in movies), that might not be a completely bad thing. That said, her usually irritating South Carolina (I think) accent is for perhaps the first time in her career (at least outside of “Bad Girls”) suited to the role she plays. I still think she’s a remarkably untalented actress, however, and that accent grates on me, authentic or not. Oh, but kudos to whoever cast Ziah Colon in the Sarah Jessica Parker role. That’s an hilariously shameless bit of casting right there. People pick on Parker for having a bit of a horse face, and casting someone who looks possibly Jewish or at least Middle Eastern ethnicity (turns out Colon, as the last name might suggest, is of Puerto Rican descent, however) is just rubbing it in (not to mention playing on racial stereotypes). The frizzy hair would’ve been enough of a giveaway, but no, Brewer (or at least the casting agent) goes the extra mile. Funny stuff, whether it’s meant to be or not. Mind you, why not go even an extra step further and hire a horse for the role? I mean, it’s already unflattering enough, you might as well go all the way, right?

 

Then there’s the dancing. I won’t deny that the big dance finale is enjoyable stuff as a standalone spectacle, but the film overall is too obviously choreographed. Let me explain. The dancing in this film should come from a place of long suppression finally reaching breaking point as the kids go wild. My memories of the original are fuzzy (Like I said, “Flashdance” was more my thing, and even that’s not much of a movie either), but I seem to recall that the dance routines in that film were somewhat organic. But here? It’s like the story stops dead for an episode of “So You Think You Can Dance”. There’s a clear difference, because although Wormald does get that gymnastics-inspired routine where he lets off steam (Just as Kevin Bacon did, if I’m not mistaken, the scene itself looks very similar), most of the other dance routines don’t come from a place of authenticity based on the character’s repression of their artistic/sexual freedom. They are set-pieces and everyone involved (especially Hough) seem to behave and move in these scenes in a far too professional and choreographed manner that it broke the illusion. Fictional or not, popcorn fluff or not, I need to be pulled into this film’s world so I can go along for the ride, and every time there was a group dance scene, the illusion was shattered. I was no longer watching the characters, I wasn’t even sure I was watching the actors playing these characters, either. Because the dance scenes look so professional and flawless (to my untrained eyes), I honestly felt like I was watching a “Footloose”-themed episode of “So You Think You Can Dance”. But without Cat Deeley (so then what’s the damn point?) If the town banned dancing several years ago, then how in the hell are these dancers not only so talented, but so clearly rehearsed as a unit? Sure, the film showed the characters occasionally defying the laws, but the dance scenes are so well-choreographed and clearly rehearsed that it wasn’t at all plausible. Then again, considering how many movies there are out there that are merely dancing spectacles (the “Step Up” franchise, in particular) and barely even attempt to play like a real movie, perhaps there’s a section of the public who won’t care about this as much as I do. But it bugged me, because it took me out of the story, clichéd and silly as that story might already have been. Brewer might say that towns banning dancing are a reality, but he hasn’t made it plausible enough here for me to believe it.

 

At the end of the day, this is not a good film at all. In addition to a storyline I just couldn’t accept, the film plays like a special episode of “So You Think You Can Dance” or at least “Glee”, and I hate “Glee” with every fibre of my being (Irrelevant side note: Why does the African-American chick on that show always look angry when she sings? Can someone explain that to me?). The original isn’t a good film, but if you’re gonna watch one of these two films, watch that one. This one is pretty faithful to the original storyline (is that the same tuxedo?), but with even lesser results. It just doesn’t work.

 

Rating: C