The universe has music that flows and flows naturally. The sound of the water flows, the sound of the waterfall, the sound of air gushing through the fields of wheat, maize and bamboo…
Man captured that and we now have an array of instruments that imitate and we emanate sounds that we call music!!*We have Rock, Pop, Jazz, Blues, Soul, House, R&B, Punk, Hip Hop and what not… I forget the alternate names of music..
Stomp The Yard, as the name suggests, is an out and out dance movie with people who follow their music like religion. Particularly the Afro Americans who have given us not just amazing voices like Nat King Cole, Jimmy Hendricks, Michael Jackson, and Lionel Richie but also 50 cents, Snoopy Dogg and a host more who call themselves the RAP, Hip Hop artists that is rocking the world!!
*Spoiler Alert: This film was shown as HOT STEPPER on TV!!
Sylvain White, after the relative success of **I will Always Know What You Did Last Summer, tries his hand at a unique dance drama film that has the basic essentials of hot black bodies, sculpted abs, chiseled arms and chest and the amazing elastic acrobatics that these black bodies have exhibited!! More than the plot, it is the dance form that kicks in the adrenaline rush of your blood while watching this rocking musical extravaganza!!
Columbus Short, DJ, in the film is a young man who has been released from jail after serving his sentence for killing his own brother Chris Brown. He is then shipped to Atlanta where his uncle Nate, Harry Lennix, gets him admitted in a university called Truth U which is a predominantly a Afro American University.
Thus begins an energetic but very formulaic story of DJ and his struggles to gain a platform in the fraternity that has two sides to the same coin!!
Mu Gamma Xi AND
Theta Nu
These two warring frats of the same university are at logger heads with each other and have been so for more than a decade. DJ enters this campus with a definite dream and methodically pushes his way forward into the hearts of the Theta Nu!!
DJ has a typical attitude and that’s what sets him on a wrong foot with an uber high classman Grant (Darrin Henson) and his girlfriend April (Meagan Good). DJ is adept at dancing and this is exactly what lands him into the camp of Theta Nu. Grant being the head man with Mu Gamma Xi…
DJ is constantly prowling April and is fallen for her like a ton of bricks!!
Here begins the drama of who – will – get – the – girl kind of script, with amazingly snazzy dance routines at the Phoenix club and the rigorous rehearsals that these guys undergo as preparations for the final standoff in the stepping competition!!
Ok, even if the film is clichéd in the love angle, the dance forms that both the frats undergo are just fantastic to watch.
Sylvain White has had tremendous experience in filming music videos and it shows because of the way he places his cameras and the fast paced edit that gives you the highlights of the dance routine being performed by the actors!! He is hyper kinetic in his filming.
The whole idea of enjoying this film so largely is because such a film will never be made in India. The kind of routines and the music that plays in the background act in making you go YO all the time!!
The music is toe tapping and grows on you. Also when you see the hard, muscled torsos glistening with sweat, roughing it out, you just feel like the rush of a heady almost orgasmic high that wants you to jump with them and partake in the glory.
Its very physical. The routines, the necessity of a toned body and the fact that we as viewers need to be convinced of how difficult the whole frat wars are and what is at stake!!
Columbus Short as DJ is very apt. He has the energy, he has the physique and has the guile and gumption to rise up to the occasion and make mince meat of competition. He has the naughtiness in his eyes and his dialogue delivery is straight. He has indeed given a depth to the character of DJ. His pursuit of April is interestingly very bollywoodish in style and I have no hesitation in saying that most Indian audiences will love this flirting. Also remember it’s a song n dance routine but of the Hollywood kind! His dancing skills are for all to see in Step Up part I & II both. He is talented. The climax dance stepping is a must watch… Its highly charged, the music thumping in the background, the men in sweat and faces full of tension and then there is a slam bang of foot tapping, body rising high in the air in a graceful arc and then a slender quick roll of the body to stand up in one whole go!! Phew… watching it made me wish that I was really one of them… And one look at my waistline told me… NAH!!! Nowhere there at all…
Meagan Good is as good as she is good. She looks very cute and pouty and can sure set the temperatures rising. The camera really flirts with her fantastic body as she bends, juggles books and even whiles she is jogging in a pink track suit!! Believe me, she is one HOT woman!! The romance is soft and very touchy.
Consider this;
April and Grant, in a restaurant; Grant is proposing her,
Grant: (sliding the ring across the table) actually I had wanted to talk to you…
April: (opening the box): Its beautiful!!
Grant: I really love you and promise you a life as beautiful… (not verbatim, sorry)
April: Grant what color do I like?
Grant: Red…
April: (nearly aghast)
Grant: No wait Blue…
April: (nearly upset and emotional)
Grant: Whats this April? I think I am going to take you home right now..
April: You know what Grant, Don’t bother…
Now consider this; April is at the door of DJ’s room; eyes swollen, crying...facing each other,
April; Hey
DJ: Hey
April; ....
DJ: Whats up? What happened??
April: I broke up!!
DJ walks out and stands next to her...
DJ; So what do you want to do now?
April: I want to come in...
DJ: Quietly guides her inside his room....
That’s the kind of romance we are talking about!!
Grant, Theta Nu brother, DJ’s uncle and the other supporting cast are adequate. What is not is the dose of the step dancing!! I have just fallen for this clichéd drama hook line and sinker…
Watch it for the routines and the ultimate climax…. You would want to put on your dancing shoes too!!