Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights. A Review

 

DIRTY DANCING: HAVANA NIGHTS

I think that one can enjoy a film that is not good. Such is the case with Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights. I was expecting a disaster, yet Havana Nights ended up being pleasant. I did not say good. I did not say Havana Nights is anywhere close to the original Dirty Dancing. I said, "pleasant", which is in the end works at least for me.

It is November 1958. Katey Miller (Romola Garai) is unhappy about having to move to Cuba. She is there because her father Bert (John Slattery) is working there. As such, the entire Miller family has to move to the tropical paradise: Katey, Bert, his wife Jeannie (Sela Ward) and Katey's younger sister Susie (Mika Boorem). Susie easily fits into the other young American expatriates like James Phelps (Jonathan Jackson), whose father is Bert's boss. Katey, more intellectual, does not mix well in this circle. She especially does not fit in with mean girl Eve (January Jones). 

Katey does have an easier time with hotel waiter Javier Suarez (Diego Luna). They meet when she accidentally knocks out his tray and gets berated for "his" clumsiness". Javier, who does speak English, is the son of an opponent to the current Batista regime. Javier's brother Carlos (Rene Lavan) is a supporter of Fidel Castro and the revolution. Javier is nominally sympathetic, but he would rather be at La Rosa Negra, where he can free himself in sultry Latin dancing.

As Bert and Jeannie were once skilled dancers themselves, Katey has some background in the art of movement. She also finds Javier's world more exciting than the WASPish world people like James and Eve live in. A dance competition piques her interest, especially with a chance for the winners to go to America. Taking the advice of the hotel dance instructor (Patrick Swayze), Katey eventually talks the now-fired Javier into being her partner.

How much of a partner will the erotic Latino become? Will the Millers find the prospect of a Cuban boy squiring their daughter a pleasant one? Will the impending revolution upend all their lives? Will Katey and Javier win the dance contest?

As I reflect on Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, I think that Boaz Yakin and Victoria Arch's screenplay (from a story by Kate Gunzinger and Peter Sagal) pretty much drew from the original Dirty Dancing. It is almost a surprise that Javier didn't go up to the Miller table and say, "Nadie pone Bebe en una esquina". You have the opening voiceover. You have the parents and two sisters, one bookish, one flirtatious. You have the luxurious hotel setting. You have the guy from the wrong side of the tracks with the moves. You have the young man that the parents would prefer for their older, bookish daughter. You have a dance rehearsal montage. You have a climatic dance.

Granted, there are some differences: you did not have revolutionaries attempting to kill people at Kellerman's Resort. Overall, though, Havana Nights is a bit of a Dirty Dancing clone. 

Things get more complicated when you see Patrick Swayze in Havana Nights. Technically speaking, he is not recreating his role as Johnny Castle. He is not billed as "Johnny Castle" but as "Dance Class Instructor". He appears briefly in the film, giving Katey a pep talk and cheers our dancers on the sidelines. I think people assume that Swayze is playing Johnny Castle, but he is strictly speaking not. I do not know exactly why Swayze could not be Johnny Castle. He could have served as a mentor to both Javier and Katey. Instead, his character, whatever he was, was just there and could have been cut out.

In terms of performances, Havana Nights does not ask much from our cast. Romola Garai makes a valiant effort, but sometimes her British accent slips through. It would have been easier to have made her an American who grew up in Britain with her family having lived there before being transferred to Cuba. That way, she could speak in her natural voice versus trying to sound like an American. To be fair, Garai's American accent was serviceable, though not always convincing. She was fine as the hesitant young girl who discovers the rhythm of the island. 

I cannot say that Garai and Diego Luna had chemistry, but they were fine with each other. I find it slightly amusing to see Luna in something like Havana Nights. I do not know if in retrospect, he is particular about being a Mexican playing a Cuban. He was fine in the part of this working-class man who found freedom in the steamy Havana clubs. I think he did as well as he could with what he was given. 

Both Jonathan Jackson and January Jones early in their careers were all right in their roles. I think it might have been better if Jackson's James had not taken a particular action against Katey and been more a dupe than a semi-villain. Jones' efforts to be the mean girl were again, fine, but she was not given much to do.

The real crime is against Sela Ward. She is a talented and beautiful actress who somehow just did not become the star that she I think could have and should have been. While she has done well on television, Ward has never fully broken into film. Havana Nights misused her. I would not go so far as to say that she is miscast. I will say that her efforts to be snobbish and hostile towards Javier and Katey fell a bit flat. It is as if Ward was trying too hard to be harsh. Slattery looked slightly sleepy in the role, but in fairness when he and Ward take to the dance floor, they do look nice.

A major compliment that I can hand Havana Nights is in its soundtrack, full of good Latin music. I cannot extend that to the dance sequences. Guy Ferland filmed some of them poorly, using many midlevel shots and spins, sometimes cutting excessively. While we did get some good numbers, the training montage felt choppy. Worse, we did not get Garai and Luna in full-form shots.  

I did find the ending curious. It is ostensibly a happy ending, with everyone going to La Rosa Negra shortly after Batista flees. Are we supposed to believe that everyone is celebrating Castro's takeover of Cuba? Maybe Luna in real life thinks this is a wonderful thing. I would have thought it would be more realistic to think that the Millers would have fled in terror versus hitting the clubs.

I did not end up hating Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights. It is inoffensive. Yes, it has no reason for being, coasting on the Dirty Dancing name and being a prequel in name only. Still, if you go into Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights, you could end up Havana good time.

Sorry, I could not resist. 

DECISION: C+

Dirty Dancing (2017): The Television Movie

DIRTY DANCING (2017)

There is an inherent danger in remaking something popular and beloved. No matter how good your product is, you will always have to face comparisons to the original. Some try for a direct remake, with the 1998 Psycho remake perhaps the most extreme example. Others try to reinterpret the material. The television adaption of the 1987 film Dirty Dancing went for reinterpretation. Expanding on the original does not make it good. Having one to two good performances does not make it good. This Dirty Dancing is a nightmare to watch. It is an absolute slog of a film that seems to have never decided what it was doing. 

Dirty Dancing uses a framing device of the main female character seeing a stage adaptation of her memoir, Dirty Dancing, in 1975 as she recalls the fateful summer of 1963. Here, Frances "Baby" Houseman (Abigal Breslin) is vacationing in the Catskills resort run by her father's friend Max Kellerman (Tony Roberts). Her father, Dr. Jake Houseman (Bruce Greenwood) is taking a very rare vacation, which Marjorie (Debra Messing) is grateful for. Marjorie is essentially sex-starved, wanting Jake to make love to her even if Baby and her older sister Lisa (Sarah Hyland) are nearby. Jake, however, keeps saying his version of "Not tonight, Josephine". 

The Housemans believe that what Baby needs is a nice Jewish boy. That would be Neil Kellerman (Trevor Einhorn), Max's grandson. Baby soon finds herself drawn, not to Neil, but to dangerous bad boy and Kellerman Resort dancer Johnny Castle (Colt Prattes). He is initially not interested, nor is he particularly eager to keep being the boy-toy to rich divorcee Vivian Pressman (Katey Segal). For her part, Lisa is soon starting to have eyes for waiter Robbie Gould (Shane Harper), who is working to get into medical school. Robbie turns out to be a jerk, pressuring Lisa for sex, which she does not want to do. 

Lisa's hungry eyes soon turn to Marco (J. Quinton Johnson), a member of the "Negro" house band conducted by longtime bandleader Tito (Billy Dee Williams). That, of course, is definitely not going to work. Neither is Baby initially when she agrees to be the substitute for Johnny's usual dancer partner, Penny (Nicole Scherzinger). Penny is pregnant and in need of an abortion, but they do not have the money for one. Baby will fill in for a recital at another resort which will help in funding Penny's abortion.

Despite their class and age difference, Baby and Johnny fall in love. However, will their romance survive the various difficulties it faces? There is the scandal over Penny's botched abortion, with Dr. Houseman furious that Baby deceived him about the money he lent her unaware of its purposes. There is more scandal when Johnny is accused of theft, allegedly stealing from Vivian. His previous services as a gigolo already are enough for dismissal, but now there is a criminal act. Will Baby escape her corner? Will Jake and Marjorie save their marriage? Will Lisa and Marco find that the times, they are a-changing? 

Fifteen minutes into Dirty Dancing and I was already regretting my choice to start this television remake. That regret was compounded when I realized that this Dirty Dancing is a full half hour longer than the original film. The length is due to expanding on the adult characters of Jake, Marjorie and Vivian. 

Honestly, those parts of Dirty Dancing were a drag. Yes, it gave Greenwood, Messing and Segal a chance to sing with their own musical numbers. It is particularly surprising to hear how good Segal is as a musical performer. However, her performance of Fever with Johnny as her dance partner was, well, bizarre. For their part, both Messing and Greenwood had to treat us to their individual renditions of They Can't Take That Away from Me. To be fair, there is something of logic when Messing does her version: it is a request from Max to sing to the resort guests.

I do not think, however, that we had to hear Greenwood sing They Can't Take That Away when he is alone remembering when Jake and Marjorie first fell in love. That is one of the many issues with Dirty Dancing. A lot of time is spent on their subplots, but I do not think viewers were that interested in the domestic marital troubles of the Housemans.

The main story should have been that of Baby and Johnny. However, that had issues too. I think Abigail Breslin was mostly fine as Baby. She did the best that she could, and I did not dislike her in the television special. The problem, the big problem, is Colt Prattes as Johnny. He has no charisma, is charm-free and frankly I found him ugly. This Johnny is perpetually angry with a permanent chip on his shoulder. I don't think anyone would want Johnny as a lover or love interest both in terms of looks and/or personality. 

It seems strange to give so much screentime to the Jake/Marjorie subplot and yet give relatively little time for the Lisa/Robbie storyline. This decision is stranger given that Shane Harper can sing yet was never given a musical number. Perhaps it would have been better to have made him Marco, Lisa's second love interest. It would not have made the sight of them singing Don't Think Twice, It's Alright any more sensible. It would, however, been a chance to show someone who is known as a singer. 

Instead, for reasons that screenwriter Jessica Sharzer and director Wayne Blair may know, they decided to essentially make Lisa and Marco the Dirty Dancing version of Hairspray's Penny and Seaweed. It was to the point where I genuinely thought that Lisa was going to pop out and exclaim, "I'm a checkerboard chick!". My best guess is that this was a way to get a more topical subject into the film which the original never touched on: interracial romance. It just did not go anywhere and having them sing a Bob Dylan song made it look less sensible.  

I felt bad for Tony Roberts, who frankly looked like a walking cadaver as Max Kellerman. Billy Dee Williams for his part was wildly underused as Tito. 

Another major issue is in how Dirty Dancing looks like a staged musical. Yes, they used the framing device of Frances seeing Dirty Dancing on the Broadway stage. However, the film never made clear if the various musical numbers were taking place in the literal past or on the current stage. There is no explanation as to how or why Baby and Penny are performing Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On. Is it a rehearsal? Is it how they think about what is going on? Is it a mix? 

I think all the musical numbers were filmed in a way as to look staged. Again, I realize that Baby was watching a stage production. However, the film never took the time to remind us that she was watching a stage production. As such, we are stuck watching Katey Segal do a Peggy Lee impersonation. 

In terms of performances, I think Breslin was probably the second-best but due mostly to the material she had to work with. I say this because Scherzinger managed to both sing and act in Dirty Dancing. She moved quite well in the dance numbers. However, she also managed to move the viewer after her botched abortion. 

Dirty Dancing took advantage of people's affection for the original film to create this monstrosity. Except for Scherzinger and Breslin, the performances were terrible. Seeing this Dirty Dancing is like watching kids cosplay the film at a slumber party. This Dirty Dancing deserves to be put in the corner. It deserves to be put out into the street and never be spoken of again.

1/10