Stomp the Yard

Plot synopsis:
DJ Williams (Columbus Short) is a young man in inner-city Los Angeles. He and his younger brother Duron (Chris Brown) compete in local dance competitions as members of a crew known as the "Goon Squad". During the battle there are backs and forths, but in the end of the battle the Goon Squad win a cash-prize, and the leader of the rival crew goes all in for a double or nothing battle,which DJ accepts much to the dismay of his brother who knows that if the opposing crew leader thinks he got hustled the crew won't be able to spend the money they win, the Goon Squad wins the second battle and the losing home crew responds by ambushing DJ and his crewmates after the show. A fight breaks out, and the leader of the rival crew starts beating up DJ. Duron pushes him away and starts fighting him, leading the rival to pull out a gun and shoot Duron, killing him.
Arrested for assault, DJ is subsequently sent by his mother to live with his aunt Jackie (Valerie Pettiford) and uncle Nate (Harry J. Lennix) in Atlanta, Georgia, where he is to attend historically black Truth University. Nate, the physical plant director at Truth, aims to teach DJ responsibility and puts him to work doing maintenance as part of a work-study program.
DJ sees April Palmer (Meagan Good), to whom he is immediately attracted. After registration, he moves into his dorm room, where he meets his new roommate Rich Brown (Ne-Yo). Rich meets DJ at a stepping competition on the green between the Truth chapters of rival fraternities Theta Nu Theta and Mu Gamma Xi. The Mu Gamma Xi crew, seven-time national stepping champions, easily steals the show until DJ sees April across the way and runs right through their step line in an attempt to speak to her. That night, Rich and his friends go out to a local club called the Phoenix and invite DJ along. Hoping to impress April and upstage Grant and the Gammas (all of whom are also in attendance), DJ takes to the floor. Despite the animosity between DJ and Grant, the Gammas recognize his skills as a dancer and their chapter president Zeke (Laz Alonso) invites him to pledge for Mu Gamma Xi. DJ turns down both Zeke's offer as well as an offer from the Theta Nu Theta chapter's leader Sylvester (Brian White).
After learning that April is a student history tutor, DJ signs himself up for tutoring so that he can spend time with her. The two slowly begin a friendship and DJ takes April out to dinner. During their date, April discusses the importance of black fraternities and sororities with DJ, and tells him to visit Heritage Hall on the campus' Greek Row.
The next day, DJ learns about the significant number of African-American historical figures and celebrities who were members of various Greek-letter organizations, and decides to pledge for the Theta chapter along with Rich and their friend Noel (Jermaine Williams). After "crossing over" to become official Theta members, DJ, Rich, and Noel join the Thetas' step crew.
While having dinner, April breaks up with Grant due to his chauvinistic attitude and his failure to know anything about her, particularly that green is her favorite color. She grows closer to DJ and they eventually become a couple. While at practice, DJ, Rich, Noel and other new members realize the step dance moves are old fashion and aren't good enough to win the stepping competition. So they decide to take the time to learn fresher moves. Sly then gathers his older member and challenges DJ and the rest to an old school vs. new school stepping contest. DJ's team loses the contest due to his showboating. They remind DJ, much like Duron did earlier in the film, that it is about the team and not about him. DJ apologizes to the entire fraternity and is quickly forgiven. Sly also requests DJ to show the team some of his moves.
A few days before the competition, Grant stumbles upon DJ's file and discovers his assault record and presents it to the board. The board then decide to suspend DJ for not disclosing his criminal record. Dr. Palmer, who is April's father, calls in DJ to his office. He was willing to uplift his suspension on the condition that he is to no longer date April. DJ declines the ultimatum and walks away. DJ then tells Nate and Jackie about the suspension. They then reveal that Jackie dated Dr. Palmer until she met Nate and there has been some animosity between Nate and Palmer ever since. Jackie confronts Dr. Palmer about DJ's suspension and Palmer claims he was only protecting April. April then confronted her father about the situation. Palmer then overturned the board's decision deciding that he would rather deal with DJ in April's life than lose his daughter.
DJ's suspension was finally uplifted and he rejoins the Thetas to compete alongside them against the Gammas in the stepping competition. Both teams were tied at the end and it was brought into sudden death rules to determine a winner. Unknown to DJ and the Thetas, the Gammas had recorded DJ practicing his moves prior to the competition. Going first, Grant does DJ's exact routine from the videotape. After he finishes, DJ matches Grant move for move, but tosses in something the Gammas didn't get on tape. The Thetas finally defeats the Gammas. April goes on stage to hug and kiss DJ and while celebrating their victory DJ still wearing Duron's gloves kisses his fist and throws it in the air in Honor of his brother. The Thetas then do their new cheer and have their picture taken where its hung in the Heritage Hall.

Tags: romantic, murder

Review:
The performances - acting and dancing - were very good.It's a shame that so many people have such hatred in their hearts that they won't expand their own minds by learning of cultures outside of their own.
STOMP THE YARD comes as a pleasant surprise to those of us who have yet to be introduced to 'stepping' - a sport/dance form that is not break dancing, not hip-hop, not modern dance, not clogging, not ballet, but instead is an exhilarating display of rhythm, physical dexterity, and creative choreography that makes this little film well worth watching.The story is minimal and hackneyed and serves basically as an outline for the dance performances.
The ending is predictable but sensitive and with a message.The real star of the film is the magnificently choreographed and executed dancing, performed by the actual cast members.
I had not seen the actor who played DJ previously but found him quite capable as was the female lead.Plot-wise vaguely reminiscent of Save the Last Dance.I don't know what people that rated this low were expecting - my thought is that "the dance" was the main point of the whole movie and entertainment enough in itself.
Get out of here and save yourself the trouble.Next, you have the "too-badass for class antagonist." I believe I saw this kind of character in "You Got Served." (Another cinematic turd.) Then there's the chick on campus that takes a shine to the main dude, but turns on him once he screws up and does/says something stupid.And finally, the fact that there's almost no good dialogue, and no comedy to flesh it out.If you're going to make a movie, take these things into account...
Stomp the Yard is as much entertainment as any film I've seen recently.After a rage-fueled brawl takes his brother's (singer Chris Brown in a cameo) life, DJ (Columbus Short) moves out of the streets of L.A. and in with his aunt and uncle (Harry Lennix of The Matrix Series).
DJ soon meets a friend in his roommate Rich (singer Ne-Yo) and the beautiful daughter of the school's president (Meagan Good of Waist Deep).You may be wondering how the dancing and stepping fits in with the plot, but that is the interesting thing.
The choreography is simply brilliant, blowing all other dancing movies of recent memory (Step Up, Take the Lead, You Got Served) out of the water.
Take the drums out of Drumline and you've got Stomp the Yard, a clumsy, by-the-numbers look at the competitive world of a complex, synchronized dance form known as stepping, a tradition for black college fraternities.High-caliber stepping is an exciting sight, and Stomp the Yard's dance scenes have a poise and visual flair that surpasses any music video: stroboscopic rapid-fire body popping, impressive slow-motion acrobatics and razor-sharp group steps backed by a thundering soundtrack.It's tragic, then, that the thin, formulaic characters and plot are no deeper than your average music video, with the typical fish-out-of-water bad boy falling for his archenemy's girl, getting off on the wrong foot with his fraternity brothers and ultimately learning a valuable lesson about teamwork.If the rest of Stomp the Yard were half as deft as its footwork, it'd be watchable.
when this movie came out i thought it was just a rip off of you got served witch was one of the worst movies I've ever seen, so i thought this would be too, but i was wrong, this movie was good, i don't see what was so bad about it, there was good acting, good dancing, good directing, decent script, and maybe a little bit of cliché's and predictability thrown in but the good out weigh the bad, if i controlled this rating i would give it a 7.
something, but a 3.1, thats just stupid, i'm sure there were pleanty of people who rated this movie without seeing it, so please see the movie first, because this movie deserves a lot of credit for its genre, and may i add the fact that meagan good is one of the sexiest movies alive to the list of good things about this movie, and my favorite part of the movie, which was the soundtrack, especially walk it out, and that scene with the song, so please see this movie and don't trust bad advertising at stupid people rating when they don't know sh*t about what there rating.
Let me say right up front that my husband and I are White and around 50, and we really liked this film: my motivation for writing this review is to get other people to see it!
Predictable but engaging, and very watchable: I needed to use the restroom but didn't want to miss anything(!), because the dance/step moves are so great.
Anyone who likes dance films, even martial arts, should catch this one--you'll marvel at the athleticism and synchronicity of the moves, enjoy the posturing and confrontations, and buy into DJ's story.
This movie is just a whole lot of "Yo, we'll beat yo (beep)and "Oh its on!"if you have ever watched "You Got Served" this movie is the exact same, except they call it "stompin the yard" now, and black fraternities are in it instead of marques Houston.
Do or do not, there is no try." Just because you try to put on a decent movie doesn't mean it's going to be; and "Stomp" most assuredly wasn't.I equate films like this to chick flicks.
Leading character suffers tragedy of some sort (of varying degrees, depending on the movie's intention--make you cry, make you happy, inspire you, etc.), experiences a change of scene, begins to flourish, is reminded of tragedy and begins to fall apart again, is uplifted by new friends to overcome tragedy, and ultimately become a better person.
But since all the cool stomping parts are buried under a lot of sappy, seen-it-all-before filler, "Stomp the Yard" ends up labeled as one of the duller movie-going moments in my life, and will be filed away in my memory banks as such.Remember kids: It's not a black or white thing--it's a sucky movie thing.
From the opening battle scene in Los Angeles to the heart-pumping wanna get up and cheer/dance nationals competition in the end, Stomp the Yard was, although somewhat cliché, a pretty impressive movie.
Other than that, if you are looking for a movie to surpass the typical crap that is released in January and don't mind a recycled plot (done a little better this time of course) see Stomp the Yard..
I went to the movie expecting a mediocre plot with some cool step sequences (like so many other 'dance' movies that are fun to watch but sheer fluff).
STOMP THE YARD is an old-fashioned college movie about someone who shows up for the wrong reasons and slowly comes to recognize that college offers more than a ticket to a life in a foreign realm: last month I looked at ANNAPOLIS SALUTE from 1937 with exactly the same story, and I don't doubt it was decrepit with age then.But when you're dealing with an old story, the issue is not the age of the plot -- we can assume it's used because it works and the question becomes one of details.
Here, we have the story tricked out with issues of belonging -- to a fraternity -- and dance competitions.Now the choreography of the movie is excellent -- but the style of dance is about confrontation and aggression And that runs directly contrary to the theme of the movie and is a weakness.I rush to note that the performances are good, even though some of the characters are written -- particularly the lead, DJ -- as a mass of immiscible contradictions.
The story has been told a million times before ( boy from the hood is given an opportunity to get out of his dead end environment) but there aren't many movies that show us blacks in higher education, much less the intense stomp competitions so popular in black universities.
If you want to waste your hard earned dollars like I did and spend it on complete filth that contains nothing even slightly interesting than I would recommend that you go watch this movie..
This movie tries to show black American men in a positive way, and shed some light on the long proud tradition of stepping.
I walked into this movie knowing nothing about it other than that ridiculous line from the previews in which Sway is yelling, "I've never seen stepping like this before!" But I knew better than to take it seriously.
As a member of the First sorority created by African American women at Howard University in 1908,Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority Incorporated, and a recent graduate of a Historically Black University (Clark Atlanta University which is the college that was used as the set for Stomp the Yard, Drumline, and School Daze)I must say the movie was exactly as I expected, an extremely exaggerated display of Greek-life and the HBCU experience.
The plot was completely predictable - kind of a mixture of "Drumline", "Bring it On", heck any bad boy/girl leaves 'hood joins team and learns to play well with others movie.But the film was a lot of fun to watch and brought well deserved attention to "stepping" at HBCU's (historically black colleges and universities)As a Mom, I appreciated the positive messages about higher education.If you've seen the fascinating David LaChapelle documentary "Rize," you'll recognize some of the krumpers/steppers, "Miss Prissy" and "Tight Eyez".
I think it's absurd that people are commenting before they've even seen the movie...That's what I call ignorant.The movie was pretty good, honestly a lot better than I expected for it to be.
Whether it be the importance of striving to be your best, the integrity and importance of being in a brotherhood with good purposes, FINE (and I mean fine...) men, culture, GREAT stepping, and drama, emotion, and meaning underlying everything.Don't just say it's like every other "gangster" movie...because it's not.
It has much more of a plot than a movie like "You got Served", although the dancing was probably equal.
It was well shot which if you are in the industry you will appreciate how talented you have to be to flesh out the varying skin tones of African Americans and lastly DJ (Columbus Short) was a skilled dancer and actor who kept me entertained.This actor stepped up to the challenge to play a character whose layers consisted of more than rage and ghetto rage.
Part of African-American Fraternal Greek culture is stepping and I haven't heard about another movie pertaining to this topic in recent history.It's an entertaining popcorn movie with great stepping..
I don't recommend anyone to see this movie unless you know the cast and crew members and decide to make fun of them ..I guess the only people who would enjoy this movie are the Disney channel watching little kids who are into this new dance fad thing.
Stomp the Yard, is a film about a young man who has to deal with college life in a new state after his brother is killed in a violent brawl.
With a new love interest, a new life, and a new style of dance, he must change the traditional way of stepping into something unique, something that's never been seen before.....Overall, the film was quite weak.
This scene really gave me a sense of pride when I saw it, and a respect for the leaders of the past.I(in addition to my mother) spent most of our time ridiculing the rest of the film.I appreciate Stomp the Yard for trying to show a well-known culture in a respected community, but it just didn't go deep enough for me to really care, or want to care for that matter..
Stomp the Yard is a fantastic dance movie!.
The phrase 'stomp the yard' refers to a style of dance originating in the African community and used almost ritualistically in black fraternities and sororities around the country.The combination of stepping mixed with hip hop moves was a treat.
Dancers are like technology, evolving ever more quickly, as the dancing wasn't quite this good just three years ago in 2004's You Got Served.
Anyone who has ever tried to step, 'krump' or break-dance can appreciate the amount of work it takes to do these acrobatic moves.The movie stars Columbus Short, a refreshing talent.
The good parts about this movie are the dancing, music, and might I add, all of Columbus Short and Brian White's fineness throughout, haha.
I did read other reviews before attending "Stomp the Yard", and approached it with a little skepticism.However, this is definitely not your average movie like "You Got Served" or others (it does get across the essence of stepping as an African American fraternity/sorority member).
It was a good quality movie but so unreal like Drumline, and everybody in college, well a HBCU can agree honestly.
With this movie people will think the black colleges are all about ans like this.
I mean yea they dance, yea its Stomp Battles, but it actually has substance and a deeper message.Really amazed by this movie, and would definitely see it again.
Of course, it doesn't have to be about reality for me to think it's a good film, but the problem here is that the dance-off, or "stomp", sections are incredibly bizarre, yet they're played completely straight.
The movie did what it was suppose to, it focus a lot on the art of stepping and dancing and yes they even tried to have a little plot which is what i thought we wanted?
I personally enjoyed the music,the dancing and stepping because that was what the movie was all about.
The music is great, the story is sweet, and you will definitely leave the movie theater singing, dancing, and feeling good!
t's good enough to make you wish that director Sylvain White had taken a documentary approach to the material, something along the lines of David LaChapelle's 2005 film Rize, about the rigorous, gravity-defying street-dance styles of krumping and clowning.Instead, White's movie focuses on young, surly DJ (Columbus Short), who moves to Atlanta from Los Angeles after his younger brother (R&B singer Chris Brown) is fatally shot in a fight.There he attends the fictional, historically black Truth University, where the fraternities and their step competitions dominate the social scene.
The story line is standard but then a lot of movies in this genre are like that and you go knowing that.Go enjoy the dance and let yourself accept the regular plot line without much fanfare.Everybody that was in the theater that night clapped when it was over which rarely happens in movies.
Overall i thought it was good but it was missing something it didn't have the swagger that made it it's own it felt like Drumline and You got served but it had nothing that made you say Wow i've never seen that but i enjoyed it and suggest you watch it you might like it you might not it all depends check it out.
Stomp the yard is a fantastic movie if you enjoy the kind of movie where talented people show off a skill you'll most likely never have(ala bring it on, you got served, drumline).
If you have seen any sort of dancing or cheerleader movie you will always be three steps ahead of the plot.
He falls in love with April (Meagan Good), the main squeeze of a prominent member of the opposite camp, bringing about plenty of issues as they square off on the dance floor.Clocking close to 2 hours, you'll probably find it amusing as you sit through deja vu moments identified from the movies mentioned, and you'll be able to stay one step ahead of formula every step of the way.
Lol it's funny that you're complaining about $9 that you spent on the movie that's chump change and it doesn't take a lot of brains to eat you simpleton just be glad you got to see part of the African American culture that you're not privy to seeing everyday unlike white fraternities and sororities stepping/stomping is something we do together showing our own individual styles but at the same time our unity.
I'll admit, I wasn't expecting to like this movie when I went to see it, but there are no good movies out at this moment, so my girlfriend and I chose Stomp the Yard.
With most movies like this one, its hard to find dancers that can act, and actors that can dance, but I have to say, this movie did contain very well acting, and a great cast.
Yes if you go to this movie you will leave the theater feeling like you just worked-out and enjoyed every minute of it.
I believe that anyone who is open minded and loves dancing and culture will enjoy watching this movie.
If you want good acting, a strong storyline and great entertainment, you need to see Stomp the Yard..
I just wish people would stop voting for a movie that they propbably haven't seen just because they don't like dance or MTV.
If you wanted to do another dance movie then by all means do one but don't take a tradition like stepping and try to make it commercial and sell it to the masses.
If you want to see another dance movie like You Got Served then go watch this.
It was really well done - although I like School Daze - people who did not PLEDGE or join Traditional Black Greek Organizations missed a lot of the message in this movie.
Hi, I thought the movie had a good message along with good dancing and stepping.Although the movie was focused on Alpha Phi Alpha vs Kappa Alpha Psi, I would've like to see more stomping from the other greeks.Also, there is no way that the competition came down to a tie before they had the stomp off.
The movie tried to show an aspect of African-American fraternities and sororities within the frame work of a feature film.