Release Date: May 8 (limited)
Director: Robert Iscove
Writer: Tom Malloy
Cinematographer: Frank Byers
Starring: Amy Smart, Tom Malloy, Billy Zane, Rachel Dratch, Caroline Rhea
Studio/Run Time: Screen Media Films, 90 mins.
Great choreography can’t sustain clumsy swing-dancing film
It’s sad that the one way Love N’ Dancing is a unique movie doesn’t even come from its dancing, but rather from how little it seems like its writer, director, actors, or pretty much anyone else involved with the picture were trying. For starters, its story is almost impossibly lazy and clichéd. Jessica (Amy Smart) wants to take her fiancé (Billy Zane) to dance lessons, but when he’s too busy with work to learn she ends up falling in love with her dance instructor (Tom Malloy) instead. Unfortunately, that’s all there is to the plot, and with not a twist in site the story really can be summed up in just one sentence. Director Robert Iscove is more interested in photographing the admittedly alluring dance sequences than making the rest of the film more than perfunctory, and the cast seems just as willing to not give a damn themselves. The bottom line is that a few pretty dances aren’t enough substance to make for a fulfilling, or even moderately entertaining movie when the rest of the material is so weak.