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Film
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Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights
Although Patrick Swayze’s cameo hints at how much better a movie this could have been, the belated sequel to the late 80s mega hit manages to find its own beat.
Friday, February 27, 2004
By Larry Carroll
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Seven~teen years ago, Johnny and Baby showed the world that nobody put them in a corner. Now, in a loosely based “re-imagining” of Dirty Dancing, an 18-year-old American named Katey (Romola Garai, Nicholas Nickleby) and a Cuban waiter named Javier (Diego Luna, Y Tu Mama Tambien) battle class division and the 1958 Cuban revolution as they fall in love on the dance floor.
As long as you’re able to put the first film out of your memory and judge Havana Nights on its own merits, you’ll find it to be a touching little film with solid dancing and a catchy soundtrack. Expect to have the time of your life again, however, and you’ll most likely be disappointed.
Director Guy Ferland (Telling Lies in America) tells the story of the Vendettos, an American family re-located to Havana after Katey’s father (John Slattery, The Station Agent) takes an executive position at Ford. His bookish daughter finds herself drawn to the Cuban street dancing exhibitions, where the handsome but poor Javier shows off his sweaty dance moves on a nightly basis.
When their romance causes the boy to lose his job, Katey becomes determined to learn to dance and win the big contest to help get Javier some money. Meanwhile, Javier’s brother Carlos (Rene Lavan) gets caught up in the revolutionary violence that surrounds the story and hangs precariously over them all.
Havana Nights two greatest assets are the Puerto Rican backdrop and Luna, both handsome and charming with a sense of peril lying beneath the surface. Although Castro’s revolution isn’t analyzed as thoroughly as it should have been, the film does give you a once removed sense of the beauty of pre-revolution Cuba and the grimness that was about to descend upon it. Luna, meanwhile, easily overcomes any flaws in the dialogue with a glinting smile. This is a young actor to watch.
Any movie with Dirty Dancing in its title, however, needs to be all about the dance scenes, and for the most part this film doesn’t disappoint. The rhythms of the Latin and Afro-Cuban music are relentlessly infective, laying a sizzlingly cool foundation on which to base the choreography.
Editors Scott Richter and Luis Colina often get too heavy-handed for their own good, but when the actors are left alone to dance they do an adequate job. The physical chemistry of Luna and Garai elevate these scenes to an even higher level, particularly during a sensual moment that has them caressing each other in front of a film projector’s flickering light.
Most of the flaws in Havana Nights stem from Ferland’s need to rush his story. Far too little time is dedicated to explaining the factors behind the Cuban uprising, Carlos and Javier’s relationship, and the charming history of Katey’s parents as classically-trained ballroom dancers.
At one point, Katey’s mother (Sela Ward, The Fugitive) and father decide to dance in public for the first time in more than a decade, get up and start showing off some moves. A laughably brief amount of time later, the song is over and they sit back down. If that subplot is going to be treated so shabbily, why waste our time with it?
Another problem is a small cameo from Patrick Swayze as a dance class instructor. Up until the Swayze scene Garai seems like a talented dancer, but when the two of them start practicing together she just can’t keep up. At fifty-two years old, Swayze shows that he should have been the lead in a true Dirty Dancing sequel, and all his presence in the movie does is remind you that the original was a classic while this film is just a slightly above-average imposter.
Swayze’s sudden presence may be enough to elicit a cheer from the audience, but it hurts Havana Nights more than it helps. Rumor has it that Jennifer Grey also has a cameo in here somewhere, but no one can be sure since her latest plastic surgery revisions are unknown at this time.
The rest of the cast do an adequate, if unremarkable, job. Garai is an appropriate combination of beauty and innocence, but her dialogue falls into a hopelessly wooden rut at times. Sela Ward’s mother is too simplistic a character for the actress to be able to make any real impact, and Jonathan Jackson is too stereotypical as the slimy white spoiled kid. Slattery, as he did in Mona Lisa Smile, once again brings a level of charm and compassion to a role that doesn’t deserve it.
Seventeen years from now, will the name Havana Nights bring a smile to people’s faces the way that Dirty Dancing still does? Doubtful. But if you can ignore the first two words in this new film’s title, you and your date may find yourselves smiling and tapping your toes. It’s tough to recapture the magic of first love, but it wouldn’t hurt to have a little fling with this movie as well.
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