Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights (2004)
(AKA Dirty Dancing 2)
Fans of the original 1987 "Dirty
Dancing" and those who are now in the target audience
of that original film (namely teenaged girls) will
love this re-working of the original idea. Even better,
those who love movies that waver between horrible
and great, cheesy and heartfelt, romantic and silly
(namely goofy film critics like me), will also love
the film.
Without a doubt, the main reason
to see this film is Diego Luna. Natural, charming
and sexy as hell, Luna is simply wonderful here. Even
better for Luna, the other actors around him are so
uniformly awful that the young thespian, who proved
what a unique talent he is in "Y tu mama tambien,"
shines even more brightly. The screen bursts with
energy and fire anytime the young actor is on it.
It makes for some of the most enjoyable viewing to
be found during this spring in American megaplexes.
Set in Cuba in 1958 (it's interesting
to note that Luna's "Y tu mama" co-star, Gael Garcia
Bernal is now in a film set around the same time and
the same place but playing Che Guevara in the Sundance
hit "The Motorcycle Diaries"), the writers of "Dirty
Dancing: Havana Nights" try to infuse their script
with a bunch of political mumbo jumbo about Batista
and Castro. Nobody really cares but it does help to
round out Luna's character and give him something
more to do than shake his cute butt.
Luna has some chemistry with his
romantic leading lady, the plasticine Romola Garai,
but most of this spark emanates from Luna's ability
to make such a mannequin seem like a desirable female.
Garai has much more in common with her supposed lesser
peer, Jonathan Jackson. When these two really, really
white people are on screen together, it looks like
the real life actors playing Ken and Barbie at a Toys
'R' Us opening have escape and crashed a Hollywood
backlot. I know that Garai's character is supposed
to be overly white (this she can emote), but the fact
that the plot has Garai playing a supposed intellectual
is just too hysterical.
But the true highlight of the cheese,
the queso de resistance if you will, is when Patrick
Swayze appears on screen. In two really bad scenes
(as well as popping up for an insert shot at a dance
contest), Swayze seems genuinely horrible here. His
scenes with Garai smack of the godawful performance
he has given in dozens of movies. When he grabs Garai
around the waist to dance with her and croons, "Easy,"
as if he were taming a wild young colt, it is almost
impossible not to fall on the floor pissing your pants
from laughing. Swayze's work here is nothing less
than guffaw inducing, but isn't that what makes films
like this so much fun in the first place? ("Nobody
puts Barbie in the corner!")
Yes, there is bad acting nearly
everywhere in the film, except when Luna gets on the
screen. He is so romantic and so genuine that everything
bad about this film melts away when he appears, leaving
the viewer swept up in the romance of the images,
the dance, Luna's innocent smile and his smoldering
brown eyes.
"Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights" is
full of music that couldn't have possibly existed
in 1958. (The soundtrack is provided by a bunch of
artists on botox maven David Geffen's J Records).
And even though the film says very clearly (as if
it were something to be proud of) in the opening titles
that it is "based on true incidents," one knows that
this film is a bunch of silly hokum, an example of
bad screenwriting by committee passing as "important"
nostalgia. It's just that when Luna is on the screen,
you simply could care less about reality.
Screw the revolution, Viva la Hottie!
Note:
Also with January Jones, Sela Ward,
John Slattery and Mika Boorem.
Directed by Guy Ferland. Lawrence
Bender is a producer.
Over eight writers worked on the
script.
Filmed in Puerto Rico.
At one time the film was to star
Ricky Martin and Natalie Portman.
Few people remember that the original
film was spun of into a short lived TV series in 1988.
Viewed at a sneak preview for press
in Austin in February, 2004. Because of a traffic
accident tying up I-35, I was 15 minutes late and
almost didn't go into the theater (I hate missing
the beginning of a movie). Luckily Austin Chronicle
critic Marjorie Baumgarten was even later, so the
film didn't start until about 20 minutes after I got
there. There were some really annoying college-aged
girls in the theater too. They laughed at all the
appropriate unintentionally funny moments but they
still bugged the hell out of me.
