I dug up this DVD in a sale for 1 euro, so for that money I dared to take a little risk, not having ever heard anything about this movie. I was attracted by the text on the cover: something about dancing, music and Broadway, which sounded promising. To my surprise this actually turned out to be a very good and solid movie, very well directed and equally well acted, and with an interesting and meaningful story.
It's about this thirty-something Broadway dancer that can't accept the fact that he's growing too old for the lime lights and that it's time to make some important choices in his life. He's constantly in denial and trying to prove his everlasting youth, by screwing around, rejecting the ties of marriage that his faithful girlfriend hopes for, auditioning for parts that are too difficult and youthful for his age. We witness his gradual downhill slide, loosing jobs, mostly because of his own arrogance, failing at auditions, getting kicked out off his girlfriends house and at last stooping as low as to play the gigolo, but failing even at that! The remarkable thing is, that all this could make for a movie that's top-heavy with drama, but it actually succeeds in avoiding that pitfall. It's as if we watch a real life documentary, everything is shown in its proper realistic, almost uneventful way, no weird turns and twists, no melodrama, no climaxes. The story simply unfolds before our eyes and is fascinating in it's own right.
The main character Nick is throughout the movie absolutely unsympathetic to say the least, yet we can see what is eating him up and that still makes you care for him, which proves a very skillful and subtle direction. Actor Rick Negrón keeps his acting "small", and is totally convincing as the not-so-young-anymore stud, handsome, vain and arrogant but terrified of his vague future. Negrón is obviously a skilled and professional dancer, and throughout the movie we see some fine dancing numbers that give the movie authenticity and pace. The other acting is overall very good, especially mentioning Kristin Moreu as the cheated girlfriend. There's some rather steamy sex now and then, but these scenes fit in well enough with the story and the characters.
My only (modest) criticism is, that after the total downfall of Nick, his change in the last 5 minutes comes a little bit too sudden, I would have liked to see something of the catharsis that we are supposed to suspect behind this at-last-seeing-the-light. But the visualization of this step towards Nick's mental capsize is very inventive and original, when we see him standing in utter desperation on the edge of a skyscrapers rooftop and then....
All in all this is a very good movie, well made, well acted, with some very good dancing and a message that's worthwhile. So to me it's a mystery why this movie is not more well-known, why this director Christian Faber since then only directed one other movie, and why actor Rick Negrón, according to the IMDb-site, since then only seems to have done some odd acting-jobs, mainly as an extra. He really deserves (and is clearly capable of) more than that!
It's about this thirty-something Broadway dancer that can't accept the fact that he's growing too old for the lime lights and that it's time to make some important choices in his life. He's constantly in denial and trying to prove his everlasting youth, by screwing around, rejecting the ties of marriage that his faithful girlfriend hopes for, auditioning for parts that are too difficult and youthful for his age. We witness his gradual downhill slide, loosing jobs, mostly because of his own arrogance, failing at auditions, getting kicked out off his girlfriends house and at last stooping as low as to play the gigolo, but failing even at that! The remarkable thing is, that all this could make for a movie that's top-heavy with drama, but it actually succeeds in avoiding that pitfall. It's as if we watch a real life documentary, everything is shown in its proper realistic, almost uneventful way, no weird turns and twists, no melodrama, no climaxes. The story simply unfolds before our eyes and is fascinating in it's own right.
The main character Nick is throughout the movie absolutely unsympathetic to say the least, yet we can see what is eating him up and that still makes you care for him, which proves a very skillful and subtle direction. Actor Rick Negrón keeps his acting "small", and is totally convincing as the not-so-young-anymore stud, handsome, vain and arrogant but terrified of his vague future. Negrón is obviously a skilled and professional dancer, and throughout the movie we see some fine dancing numbers that give the movie authenticity and pace. The other acting is overall very good, especially mentioning Kristin Moreu as the cheated girlfriend. There's some rather steamy sex now and then, but these scenes fit in well enough with the story and the characters.
My only (modest) criticism is, that after the total downfall of Nick, his change in the last 5 minutes comes a little bit too sudden, I would have liked to see something of the catharsis that we are supposed to suspect behind this at-last-seeing-the-light. But the visualization of this step towards Nick's mental capsize is very inventive and original, when we see him standing in utter desperation on the edge of a skyscrapers rooftop and then....
All in all this is a very good movie, well made, well acted, with some very good dancing and a message that's worthwhile. So to me it's a mystery why this movie is not more well-known, why this director Christian Faber since then only directed one other movie, and why actor Rick Negrón, according to the IMDb-site, since then only seems to have done some odd acting-jobs, mainly as an extra. He really deserves (and is clearly capable of) more than that!