Dirty Dancing 2: Havana Nights Review
by Harvey S. Karten (harveycritic AT cs DOT com)March 1st, 2004
DIRTY DANCING: HAVANA NIGHTS
Reviewed by: Harvey S. Karten
Grade: B-
Lions Gate/Artisan Pictures
Directed by: Guy Ferland
Written by: Victoria Arch, Ronald Bass, Jonathan Bernstein, Mark Blackwell, Pamela Gray, James Greer, Christina Wayne, Boaz Yakin
Cast: Romola Garai, Diego Luna, Mika Boorem, Polly Cusumano, Jonathan Jackson, Patrick Swayze, Sela Ward, January Jones, Rene Lavan, Mya Harrison, John Slattery Screened at: Loews E-Walk, NYC, 2/28/04
"The Cuban Revolution existed only to interrupt the dancing," growled a colleague after seeing Guy Ferland's "Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights." That critic lives for ideologically motivated stories, with a great preference for those with a far-left tone. But "Dirty Dancing" is no more about the Cuban Revolution than Bertolucci's "The Dreamers" is about the May '68 demonstrations in France. Politics does, however, serve as backdrop to both films, reminding us that we are not dealing with the present day but with significant periods in recent history.
Written by a huge committee of scripters, "Dirty Dancing" follows a predictable trajectory, which is perhaps why it could bring in a box office filled with receipts from the kinds of movie buffs who see works on the big screen maybe three times each or twenty if we're talking "Lord of the Rings," then go with the DVDs four months later. As a remake of the 1987 film with Jennifer Grey, this version is not as sexy (Diego Luna in the role of a callow youth who's better on the dance floor than at the poolside serving drinks) is not Patrick Swayze and, in fact, the small role that Mr. Swayze has this time around shows him once again to be the charismatic lead male that the pictures craves but does not get.
Still the photography is sumptuous, San Juan standing in for the Cuban capital that neither movie crews nor ordinary people can visit thanks in part to Mr. Bush's latest moves to curb U.S. travel to the original Yankee-go-home place. The 1987 theme is the same: Just as white boys can't jump, white girls can't dance. Or can they? If you guess that Katey Miller (Romola Garai also of "Y Tu Mama Tambien," "I Capture the Castle" and "Nicholas Nickleby") will shock her country-club parents, (John Slattery and Sela Ward) by shucking the fox trot and Lindy in favor of Sambas and other bailes Cubanos, that her kid sister Susie (Mika Boorem), originally horrified that Katey is dating a pool boy but later cheering her on, and that Cuban-American relations will be strengthened, you're on target.
Don't look for any surprises in the plot or particular magnetism by the male lead or, for that matter, by the cute but too-white- bread-even-for-the-horsey-set partner. To the film's credit, though, the dancing is dandy, the ocean is wavy, the girl enjoying her seventeenth summer becomes a woman.
Rated PG-13. 87 minutes.(c) 2004 by Harvey Karten at
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