Movie Review - Take the Lead

I saw the movie "Take the Lead" a while back. It stars Antonio Banderas as a ballroom dancing teacher who teaching some New York City high-schoolers to ballroom dance. I was listening to the relevant podcast, and they compared it (without seeing it) to Dangerous Minds. It is actually based on the life of Pierre Dulaine.

It was decent, but I may be biased. I have an interest in ballroom dancing. If you don't have an interest in ballroom or Antonio Banderas, this might not be the movie for you. It is kind of formulaic, in it's storyline, but there are a few wrinkles here and there that keep things mildly interesting. The soundtrack is cool in that it varies between ballroom-style music (i.e. Sinatra, Gershwin) and hip-hop (i.e. Q-tip and Black Eyed Peas). It certainly made me want to dance.

But I'm giving this movie a "7." Mostly because it was unoriginal in it's story idea and there was nothing exciting from a cinematic point of view (and by cinematic, I mean the way the movie was shot, film angles, editing, etc..)