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Back Shelf Beauties
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Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights This is the movie that reminds us Patrick Swayze is not dead! It's set in Cuba 1958, so change the script to, "Nadie pone Baby en una esquina", (That's right, "Nobody puts baby in a corner"). Romola Garai stars as Katey - a beautiful, uptight, conservative high school senior who has spent her teen years with her pert little nose in a book studying hard to get into Radcliffe college (I guess that's a big deal if you care about learning and education and stuff). Her family has moved to Havana, Cuba due to Dad's job, but the socialist revolution is brewing and it's not a safe place to be out and about with the locals. Katey doesn't mesh well with her snooty, spoiled fellow American schoolmates, but she quickly makes friends with one of the hotel's working class Cuban employees, Javier (Diego Luna). Javier stirs up something within Katey as he teaches her how to get in touch with the music of his homeland (if you have a dirty mind, stop chuckling to yourself!), so the two team up to compete in a New Year's Eve dance contest (and I have seen The Godfather II, so I know what happens on New Year's Eve! Fredo, I know it was you!) Will Katey and Javier win the big competition so he can go to America and escape Cuba's poverty and political uncertainty? Will Swayze remind Katey that, "She's Like The Wind"? Will we have the time of our lives? If you saw the original Dirty Dancing 17 years ago, you know what to expect in this one. The kids are alright as they battle class prejudice, overwrought teen melodrama, clumsy metaphors, formulaic characters, dialogue that will make you roll your eyes, and the burning feeling in their loins that compels them to the point where they just gotta dance! The writers (there are 4 - 7 writers depending on what sources you consult) do everything they can to make this movie a copy of the first Dirty Dancing, and we even get some sly musical allusions to the first one (just listen to those Spanish guitars). They don't aspire to do much but follow the typical recipe for teen rebelliousness and romance, but it's a passable script and story. With the R-rated antics of Janet Jackson, Britney Spears, Courtney Love and more, a little dirty dancing seems quaint in 2004. It might be all that this cast can handle. Luna is fine as the object of teen girl fantasy playing a strange mix of the good boy and the bad boy that he handles with aplomb, but Garai is absolutely dreadful. While she starts off as an uptight, conservative, scared, but babelicious gal, she doesn't get better when it's time for Katey to learn how to dance and get in touch with her inner sexuality and womanhood. As you know, movies have taught us that the female heroine is empowered when she learns how to let her hair down, dance the night away, and ooze sexuality, but Garai remains stiff as a board and continues to recite her lines like Frankenstein's monster even when the young Katey is supposed to be in full bloom and taking charge of her life. She was much better in Nicholas Nickleby, so I have to put some blame on director Guy Ferland. Of course, no Dirty Dancing movie is complete without the man himself. Swayze shows up in this one as some sort of Dance Instructor/Shaman who hands out lessons in life, love and the Lambada. With lines like, "to dance well, you have to WANT to be in each other's arms," Swayze is in all of his cheesy, 80's glory, which is fine with me and just about every person who will go see this movie. He's still got the moves and a body that makes women swoon, but that facelift looks a little too tight if you ask me. I guess he goes to the same plastic surgeon who works on Joan Rivers. If you loved the first one, you'll probably like this one. Since I'm a MAN, I just can't go wholeheartedly in the tank for Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights. 2 Waffles (Out of 4) Copyright 2004 - WaffleMovies.com
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