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Do the write thing
Reviews
Take the Lead
To Sir, With Tango
By
JUSTINE ELIAS
|
April 5, 2006
TAKE THE LEAD
" alt="photo of 'TAKE THE LEAD'">
2.0
Stars
Liz Friedlander’s pleasant but unsurprising film is a fictionalized
Mad Hot Ballroom
with rude but redeemable teenagers substituting for the 2005 documentary’s wide-eyed children. Former ballroom-dance champion Pierre Dulaine (Antonio Banderas) charms his way into a volunteer teaching gig at a grim New York City high school, where he first bores and then beguiles backtalkers, drugtakers, and would-be gangbangers with his vicious-hot dance-floor moves. “Sex on hardwood!” sighs a white debutante (Lauren Collins) who’s somehow wangled her way into the mix, even though she doesn’t attend school there. The malcontents all fall into step, either out of boredom or from a hunger to master the salsa, the samba, and the rumba. Neither the outcome of a climactic dance contest nor the
To Sir with Tango
message is ever in doubt: never underestimate youth, the arts, or the power of an insinuating beat.
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