'Take The Lead' stumbles

"Take the Lead" is admittedly a hard sell: Aiming to convince us that a group of New York City high school students -- struggling to overcome the setbacks associated with abusive parents, poor families, rampant crime and apathetic teachers -- can turn it all around just by learning the foxtrot.

Though it does have one artful step up on most films about urban issues: it's a charming bit of wishful thinking we'd all love to buy into.

But ironically, the problem with the story, as constructed by first-time director Liz Friedlander, is that it keeps one foot planted too firmly in reality, and the other planted too whimsically in the world of Hollywood make-believe. It doesn't so much help us to suspend our disbelief as continuously remind us of how foolish we are to believe in a story that is aware of the real world, but ultimately chooses to disregard it.

"Take the Lead" might be one of the few titles that loses both camps of filmgoers -- both those who want movies to reflect the struggles of reality and those who go to the theater to escape.

Pierre Dulaine (Antonio Banderas) first steps foot into this broken, inner-city high school because of Rock (Rob Brown), who he sees one night trashing Principal James' (Alfre Woodard) car. He is a private dance instructor, at the behest of his wealthy white students, and he presents James with a proposal that sends her into hysterics: He wants to teach these young fans of rap how to ballroom dance.

Her laughter in this key scene, and her later disagreements with one of the school's teachers of honors students, are the film's most interesting segues into powerful social commentary. The teacher of the gifted students skips his study hall duties with the slackers because he says those kids with potential are more deserving of his time -- at least they're trying. And James, charged with keeping her kids out of jail first, in school second, in class third and ultimately on the front end of the standardized test curve, which reigns supreme in a "No Child Left Behind" world, doesn't think that dance, or the arts, are a wise use of the school's resources.

But Dulaine persists and takes over the section of study hall that no one else wants. They make an unlikely group of dancers to be sure, roughed up kids who recoil at Dulaine's romantic ballades and the entire notion of dancing with a girl. But Dulaine's relentlessness, and his demonstrations of how sexy dancing can be with one of his most experienced and beautiful students -- a prima donna who scoffs at the idea of sharing a rehearsal space with poor, black dancers -- convinces the boys that this is a good way to get girls, and the women that this is the fast path to elegance.

"Take the Lead" is based on the life of an actual dancer who passed on his passion to city students. Yet the dance sequences feel far too chopped up and stylized to feel organic, and as the kids dress up for their final dance competition I was simply not caught up in the fun, nor buying that all was now well in their world.

I was wondering where these broke kids got the money for their frilly outfits, and what happened to them after they got back home from the competition. The film made me care too much to settle for happily ever after.

Make a standard Hollywood fantasy and you don't need to deal with this fact. But start flashing around the term "real story," and it must at least have some bearing on reality -- on what happens after the competition, when the kids go back home to less than happy circumstances.

Distributed by Internet Broadcasting Systems, Inc. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.