Footloose

Big city transplant to Middle-of-Nowhere, USA?  Check.  Angst ridden teen who has trouble with the locals?  Check.  Said teen turns at least a portion of the town around with basically good vibes ‘n shit?  Check.  So this one seems to check all the boxes…or does it?!

Look I’m gonna cut right to it, this thing kinda stinks.  One of the bigger problems is the movie doesn’t know what it wants to be.  Sometimes it’s a musical with choreographed dance numbers and sometimes it’s a dramedy about teen life.  This indecision was a bit distracting and it’s really the famous warehouse dance scene that’s the main culprit.  It comes out of fucking nowhere and makes no sense in any context.  First of all it’s never setup that Ren (Kevin Bacon (Wild Things)) is this virtuoso dancer.  He talks about how he’s into dancing but at like clubs.  It’s not something he’s studied on a professional level (and apparently neither has Bacon because his dancing double is way too damn obvious).  But second, and maybe more importantly, the film never has Ren or anyone else dance like this again for the duration.  So what the fuck was that all about then?  If Ren continued to dance in such a gifted and practiced manner then I would be ok with it.  But to have this solitary moment of Ren going ballistic in an empty warehouse where he bounces off all the shit in there, does a high bar routine and then the movie calmly walks away like it never happened is exceptionally weird.

But you know, there’s something wrong with the whole picture.  It feels as if someone today made an 80’s teen movie and got a lot of shit right like the clothing, the dialogue, many of the situations and etc, but the thing still doesn’t quite add up.  Something’s clearly off that makes it feel like an imposter.  I think it’s a combination of small things like the love interest’s disturbingly real death wish, we never find out why Ren and his mother move to this dusty small town which is a huge goddamn backstory element to leave out, the way they fucked up using the title song by playing it in full over the opening credits then using a snippet in the middle and then playing it in full again at the end when they should’ve saved it solely for the finale, and etc.

This is one of those movies where I don’t get why it’s remained so popular over the years.  Nothing about it is particularly good guys.  Of the three big 80’s teen dance films Flashdance is an incredibly boring pile of crap, Footloose is maybe alight at best that has an almost fraudulent tinge to it, but nothing is gonna beat the masterful Dirty Dancing.  It’s not only a fun time it’s kinda one of the best movies ever made.  The other two are just sorta dumb and pretty baffling as to how they got and sustained a following.

If you gotta cut loose don’t Footloose, dig on some Purple Rain instead.