Very Little Dancing

Rating: 7/10 (3 January 2012)

In this lively adolescent-oriented musical, a city kid attempts to adapt to life in an ultra-conservative backwater Midwestern town. Once there, he ends up leading the repressed teenagers into a rebellion against the town fathers, who have outlawed rock & roll and dancing in Footloose.It stars Kevin Bacon,Lori Singer,Dianne Wiest and John Lithgow. It tells the story of Ren McCormack, an upbeat Chicago teen who moves to a small town in which, as a result of the efforts of a local minister, dancing and rock music have been banned.It is loosely based on events that took place in the small, rural, and religious community of Elmore City, Oklahoma.It was directed by Herbert Ross.
Ren McCormack, a teenager raised in Chicago, moves with his mother to the small Rocky Mountain town of Bomont to live with his aunt and uncle after his father leaves them. Soon after arriving, Ren makes a friend named Willard, and learns the city council banned dancing and rock music after several teens were killed in an accident six years earlier. He soon begins to fall for a rebellious girl named Ariel, who has a boyfriend, Chuck Cranston, and an overprotective father, Rev. Shaw Moore ,a powerful member of the town council. Rev. Moore's son--and Ariel's older brother--died in the crash.After trading insults with Ariel's boyfriend, Ren is challenged to a game of chicken involving tractors. Despite not knowing how to drive a tractor, he wins. Rev. Moore mistrusts Ren, forbidding Ariel to see him and using his influence to have Ren kicked off the gymnastics team. Ren and his classmates want to do away with the ban on dancing and have a senior prom. He presses on despite gaining a reputation as a "troublemaker"; his efforts cause his mother to get fired on the pretense that she isn't being a good mother, and also cost his uncle business. Moore's wife is supportive of the movement, and explains to Moore he cannot be everyone's father, and that he is hardly being a father to Ariel. She also says that dancing and music are not the problem.Ren goes before the city council and reads several Bible verses provided to him by Ariel in order to cite scriptural support for the worth of dancing to rejoice, exercise, or celebrate. Although Rev. Moore is moved, he and the other council members vote to keep the ban. Ren initially gives up, but his boss at a flour mill tells him that the mill is located just outside the town limits, and offers to let the kids use it for their prom. Meanwhile, Moore has a change of heart after seeing some of the townsfolk burning books that they think are dangerous to the youth. Realizing the situation has gotten out of hand, Moore stops the burning.On Sunday, Rev. Moore asks his congregation to pray for the high school students putting on the prom. Moore and his wife are seen outside, dancing for the first time in years. Cranston and several of his friends show up and challenge Ren and Willard to a fight, but Ren and Willard easily fend them off and go back inside. Ren triumphantly yells, "Let's dance!"
What is surprising about the movie is that it has very little dancing.Also,it was cheesy to that point that rock and roll music is a devil's music.What's worse,the ending was simply contrived and manipulated as the Reverend accepted rock and roll without any convincing reason whatsoever. The only good thing about it the great acting of Kevin Bacon and Kenny Loggins' music,Footloose.