First of all, let me make this clear: I am not against formula pictures in general. Done well, most inspirational, yet cliched, formula pictures can be entertaining, touching and moving in thier own little way. I am also pleased when the filmmakers think outside of the small box they create for themselves, and give the audience a surprise. When a film like Take The Lead sticks to formula, but offers nothing new to the table, and is too shameless in the cliches, it has to rely on the actors- and in this case, the two-step.

Take The Lead, inspired by the true story of Pierre Dulaine, can barely tango out of cliche hell. It reads like a checklist, and you can mark them off one by one without even looking. While ‘inspired’ is usually a dead giveway, I’m not reffering to coincidence, where we meet Rock (Rob Brown of Coach Carter), as after he is tossed out of the high school dance and gets payback on Principal Augustine James (Alfre Woodard) by causing an act of vandalism…and is stopped by Dulaine- and the next day Rock just happens to be in detention, which Dulaine has been asked to supervise, because no other teacher or administrator wants to go down there. Why is that, I wonder. Maybe it’s because they like hanging in the teacher’s lounge, and crack jokes how Dulaine won’t last a day. Especially when Dulaine wants to teach the youth ballroom dancing.

Detention, or ‘the dungeon’ is in the NYC school’s basement, and after you meet the kids, you are never quite sure why the teens are in detention in the first place. Even Rock. From what I can tell in the film, the most harm the kids do is talk trash, and when it is revealed that two of them- Rock and LaRette (Yaya DaCosta)- had deceased brothers in rival gangs and whose portraits hang in the Principal’s office. It’s an sad irony implied that authority figures care about young people who die before their due time, but they seem ready to throw in the towel when other teens are among the living. Yes, we have Dulaine, a teacher/instructor who wants to reach out to the youth. The odds are against him, he has a rough first time, but comes back the next day and gets the kids’ attention. But lo and behold, Rock struggles between choosing between right and wrong. Nothing wrong with that, if the wrong element didn’t crop up on the predetermined beat of the film. Then comes the old, tired scene that happens in high scool teacher/coach films. In cop films, it’s hand over the badge and the gun. In teacher films it’s the board (bored) meetings where the maverick teacher or coach is faced with in-house antagonists who believe he/she is a negative influence on today’s youth, in spite of progress and the idea that the teacher is new but was expected to fail in the first place.

Then comes the race card. White rich people are stuck up and snobby. One girl’s parents overcriticize her and put so much pressure on her that she voluntarily goes to the other school on the other side of town – and gets to know the kids in detention. The only other white face is the kid who acts black, corn rolls and all. There are a few lines which imply her parents are racist. In addition, the hot dancer everyone woos over turns out to be a last minute bad girl villian, if for the only reason that you don’t root for her in the big competition in the third act.
Why rely on such stereotypes? Why not she just be a professional, and leave it at that? Why should we feel bad for contestants who defy the contest rules on top of that?

Which brings me to what is good about the film. Besides Antonio Bandaras, who is likeable in this part, some of the other actors shine as well , specifically DaCosta. Then there is, of course, the dancing, which is engergetic and despite a small objection in the context of the story, one dance tells a story on its own. It only pleases me to know that the young lady dancing is Jenna Dewan (Tamara), who I still think will be a major actress in the years to come. An interesting note is that the movie is directed by first time feature film director Liz Friedlander, who had previously directed several music videos. I bring this up, because I enjoyed this film more than Honey where most of that film was nothing but a music video, and characters were cut from cardboard.

I’m also a sucker for most formula films, and I understand there are plot points that must hit every beat, montages, and the like. But the best formula films…well, let me put it this way. As far as dance themed film goes, Take The Lead is alright. As a teacher-student formula film, it gets detention.

See Lean On Me, Stand And Deliver, or even Remember The Titans instead.

Take The Lead
Starring: Antonio Bandaras, Alfre Woodard, Rob Brown, Yaya DaCosta, Dante Basco and Jenna Dewan.
Directed by Liz Friedlander

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