How She Move (DVD)

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Formula, formula, formula. You name the subject, and the movies can fit it into a formula. Paramount Vantage's 2007 release "How She Move" may be about step-dancing and it may feature a mostly black cast, but it could just as easily be about football, baseball, basketball, soccer, golf, boxing, wrestling, running, cheerleading, waltzing, spelling, debating, martial arts, competitive drumming, or tiddly winks. Motion pictures have covered far more fields than these and in much the same way. Aside from using some African-American dialect in its title, "How She Move" has little new going for it beyond a boatload of energy and enthusiasm. And pure formula.

What's "step dancing"? In this film, to me it looks like a cross between break dancing and tapping (or stomping), done to hip-hop music. But what do I know. Wikipedia describes step dancing as "the generic term for dance styles where the footwork is the most important part of the dance. Body and arm movements and styling are either restricted or considered irrelevant.... There are very few pure step dances, as most include at least some upper body or arm styling. The tradition includes Irish step dance, possibly the best known form of step dance, often marked by rigidly held upper body.... Another form of step dancing, Stepping, has been popularized by the National Pan-Hellenic Council. This step dance has African roots and is an African-American tradition as well as a part of Black history."

From this description, you can guess what the movie is about and where it's heading. It's got to have a young person struggling to get along and get ahead in the world and succeeding in the area of his or her choice, in this case step dancing. In "How She Move," the young person is Raya Green (Rutina Wesley), a teen from the ghetto whose Jamaican parents send her to an exclusive private boarding school to get her away from a bad environment and prepare for a career in medicine. But when their other daughter, Pam, gets involved in drugs, the parents wind up spending all of their money trying to rehabilitate her. The money runs out and Pam dies simultaneously, meaning Raya must return home.

I mean what's a poor young person to do in this case? Why, either get a scholarship, because she's quite smart, or join a dance team and win a big dance contest, of course. I think Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland played in this same movie about sixty years ago. One of Raya's oldest friends, Bishop (Duane Murphy), and Bishop's brainy little brother Quake (Brennan Gademans) head up a step-dance crew and reluctantly let Raya join them. Then there's this big Step-Dance Monster Competition in Detroit that pays $50,000 to the winners, and, well, you see it all coming.

Along the way, there are the rival girlfriend, the petulant Michelle (Tre Armstrong), and the rival dance-crew leader and local drug dealer, the villainous Garvey (Cle Bennet), to contend with. Moreover, Raya lives in a neighborhood where everybody looks like they'd just as soon slit your throat as say hello. Life is tough.

If the movie offered anything new or innovative, it might be different, but no such luck. For instance, does it have a theme or message to catch our attention? The filmmakers say on one of the featurettes that it's all about coming of age and finding one's voice and one's place in life. Fair enough, if we hadn't heard the same points made in every inspirational sports and genre movie ever made. Are the characters at all interesting? Nope, they're largely stereotypes. Is the story line different or imaginative? Sorry, we can see every plot development coming fifteen or twenty minutes before it happens. And it's not like this is an epic, a blockbuster, or a period piece where the settings, costumes, or special effects might worth our attention. Rather, the filmmakers have created an intentionally drab-looking movie.

So, what does the film offer? As I said earlier, it has enthusiasm (the young actors give it their all), energy, dance, and music. Keyshia Cole and DeRay Davis make guest appearances as themselves, and Missy Elliott, Busta Rhymes, and Lil' Mama," among others, provide the tunes. If any of these elements appeal to you, you're in. If not, the movie may be as long a haul for you as it was for me.