Review: Footloose (2011) - Craig Brewer

Now I gotta cut loose. Footloose

            To be honest I never had any intention of ever seeing this film, it didn’t ever appeal to me nor did it have the glow of nostalgia (for me). But this morning as I do every Friday morning I was watching the Schmoes Know (http://www.twitter.com/SchmoesKnow and http://www.youtube.com/schmoesknow ) podcast ( I love it, but now it’s on at 4am Irish time I can’t watch it live), anyway their guest was Craig Brewer (http://www.twitter.com/mybrewtube  ) director of the 2011 remake of Footloose (As well as “Black Snake Moan” and  “Hustle & Flow”). It was his passion and love of the original film and what the film meant to him that made me decide to check it out. I should also mention that I have never seen the original Footloose in whole, I’ve seen bits and pieces and know the general gist but not enough to do a comparison, maybe someday I’ll add a comparison, anyway without further ado here’s my review.
 
            After the first couple of minutes of watching this film, I knew I was in for a good time, the subtle way Footloose (the song) is played over the studio plaques and then louder as part of intro scene is beautiful and sets the mood perfectly for the rest of the film. But then it changes mood drastically as on the way home from the party the group we’ve been focused on is killed in a car crash, leading to the decision to ban dancing (well unsupervised dancing anyway)as well as introduce a curfew (for teens) in the town in the wake of this tragedy as lead by the parent of one of the deceased teens Reverend Shaw Moore (Dennis Quaid). This was a very good introduction to me as it lays most of the opposition out in the open for the audience to see and digest, but very different to the original where this was only talked about, I’ve always been of the opinion that with film its always better to show it than say it.
             The film then flashes forward three years where we meet our antagonist Ren McCormack (Kenny Wormald), who had to move in with his uncle after his mother died of cancer. His Uncle gives Ren a car to fix up which he does haphazardly (an over head rope for the accelerator and a bullhorn speaker hooked up to an iPod as the radio) and drives into town with the radio blaring and gets pulled over by the police and gets ticketed for disturbing the peace. The next day Ren goes to church and here we again meet Reverend Shaw and his beautiful (butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth) daughter Ariel (Julianne Hough). At school Ren befriends Willard Hewitt (Miles Teller) who is my favourite character, and who also tells him about the dancing ban, the two also have a very witty exchange where the big town Ren schools the small town Willard but it’s all for fun.
            God I’d better start moving this along that’s only the first 15 minutes. So Ariel has a boyfriend (the much older) Chuck Cranston (Patrick Flueger), who’s a dirt track racer, I’d describe him as the jealous dirt bag type. Anyway to cut a long story short Ariel is very flirty and flirts with Ren (she’s willing to do more than flirt with him but that comes a bit later), Ren really falls for Ariel and wont just hook up with her for the sake of it (bless his cotton socks he wants a relationship with her) and as always Chuck is jealous and cocky but he’s sure Ariel won’t leave him. Chuck challenges Ren to a destruction derby style bus race around the dirt track, which Ren wins by crashing into Chuck’s bus. This moves the mostly friendly rivalry between the two into a hatred, and also makes Ariel willing to cheat on Chuck, but Ren calls her on it basically calling her a slut, but he saves her life so it fine.
             After this Ariel and Ren grow closer as friends and we get to see them go out of town to go dancing and drinking and generally been teenagers, on the way home they cross the bridge where the faithful accident took place and Ariel tells him that one of the kids who died in the opening was her brother who she looked up to. Ariel then tells Chuck that she’s sick of how he treats her and breaks up with him, then he beats her up and when she goes home gets in an argument with her father who blames Ren as in his eyes her behaviours gotten worse since he arrived, she says he didn’t beat her and he’s not the reason for her behaviour, then her dad hits her and she storms off (this girl is not having a good night). A few days after this we see Ren and Ariel talking (and possibly dating), Ren has a plan to throw a prom, he gets help from Ariel who lends him her bible marked with a few passages to sway the decision of the town council but is unsuccessful in his petition that the town council revoke the laws they implemented after the crash. Ren’s boss offers the use of his mill for the Prom and as it technically falls outside the towns reach its laws don’t apply, Ren approached Reverend Moore with this information and tells the Reverend his plan which the Reverend accepts he then asks if he can take Ariel to the dance.
Then at the barn Chuck and his gang show up and start a fight with Ren and his friend which they win and dance the night away.
 
             So in summary what did I think of this film I loved it, the music used was brilliant in my opinion it was a great mix of eighties songs and some modern ones, I understand a lot of the eighties songs were ones from the original movie, but they were either cover versions by modern artists or updated remixes of the originals. The film also had an indie vibe off it due to how some of the shots were framed and edited which I loved. I think everyone should check out this film its very entertaining and would make a great date movie.
I’d give it a B^-.