Disqualified

Rating: 4/10 (5 October 2009)

Sometimes you see movies that exemplifies just what a machine Hollywood is. Movies are rushed into becoming productions almost like exploitation films. You like dancing? Oh, we've got just the movie for you! Look at the box cover, that's Richard Gere! And isn't that smile of Jennifer Lopez' just adorable? And that's that Sarandon woman too, yes, I remember her from that death row movie whatever it was called... it won't matter that the screenplay is a parade of dangling loose ends and that the movie presents some stunning contradictions in their vacant characters, the frame will be glued together by some good acting and a lot of rumba, shot in close-ups.
To conclude an even more un-original trait of the movie, it's a remake (what do you know!) to a Japanese movie which I have not seen. I wouldn't know the similarities between the two movies then, but I suspect that the original movie was consistent enough to make you understand what it was about. This 'Shall we dance' leads you astray very early on, and keeps you out of focus and end up with a happy ending which leaves you unsure about what the problems the characters had in the first place. Clearly, you are not meant to think too much when you watch this movie.
Well, sorry, my bad, but I kept using my brain upon watching this movie. We are introduced to Richard Gere's character, a happily married lawyer who likes his life but, apparently, "something's missing". It never gets specific, but he does become interested in the beautiful face of Jennifer Lopez on the subway. It turns out that she's a dancer, working as a teacher at a night time dance class. She used to compete for real, but it went bad with a partner that was more than just a dance partner. Anyhoo, Gerie stops of the subway to check in at the dance hall and subsequently starts to hang out there frequently. He learns to dance. Is he really interested in Lopez? Maybe, maybe not. He however keeps his mouth shut to his wife, played by Susan Sarandon who eventually starts to get suspicious.
Now what this movie at one level at least tries to be (I guess there was some kind of real motivation involved in the making of it) is a movie where a guy who's got it all gets intoxicated with dance because it gives him something exciting next to his satisfying but mundane life. But regardless of what the idea is, the movie starts out as a drama about adultery. The dancing is shot straight, and when the characters start to get ready for a dance contest - which is what the big showdown of the movie is supposed to be all about - it's impossible to care about any of it. The elephant in the room is Gere's marriage, and the question "what the hell is he doing?" somehow switches to "aw, who cares, look it's a dance contest coming up!" But I really can't imagine anybody getting a high temperature out of Gere trying to dance waltz in a series of medium close-ups. Compare it for instance to Baz Luhrmann's Strictly Ballroom. Now there was a movie all about dancing. We are led to believe that this movie is about Gere and his unspecific affection towards Lopez. Then we are to believe that it's all about the magic of dance. But there's no magic involved. It's stale and dead, and while the director is the most guilty I think a lot of the failure lies in Gere too, who is far too robotic and two dimensional of an actor to express a character like this. When he says that he got to like dancing, I'm not really getting in the mood to take classes. Lopez is another story, not just because she is a natural born dancer but also because she's an underrated actress who makes quite a believable and realistic girl next door-type of great and professional dance lover. Many other actors serving as comic relief are also good, Stanley Tucci for instance, but they are definitely by the numbers.
But by far the greatest problem I had with this movie was letting Susan Sarandon play a semi-hysteric role, making the worried wife a comic relief. She becomes the visible object of the big flaw of the movie - What is it supposed to be about? Does she ever find out that her husband went to take dancing classes by following a beautiful young woman he got interested in? It's as if the movie forgets about this along with Gere's character and that's just, if not an outright shame, than at least sloppy storytelling. We don't get to know anything about how Gere's life was changed by his dancing experience. We don't get to know if the marriage is flawed, or if Lopez' character was a threat to it. Or what any of the events in the movie actually mean. It all ends up utterly pointless.
As passable enjoyment I accepted this movie about one third into it before I found it totally lost it's concepts. After that it was straight downhill and I just wished somebody could have come along to clean up the script and switched the director. You know, made the same movie only better... oh, wait a minute, right, there was the Japanese original. Better check it out.