n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

In New York, the polite dance instructor Pierre Dulaine sees a black teenager vandalizing the car of the director of a public school and on the next day he volunteers to teach dance to students to give respect, dignity, self-confidence, trust and teamwork. The reluctant director Augustine James offers the troublemakers that are in detention expecting Pierre to give-up of his intentions. Pierre struggles against the prejudice and ignorance of the students, parents and other teachers, but wins his battle when the group accepts to compete in a ballroom dance contest.So this was the week of dance movies. I didn't expect much of the plot from this film, and I wasn't surprised. This movie, like any other dance films is predictable and clichéd. Still, I liked the plot and followed with it. I've also seen this film for the dances. How were they? They were as good as, if not better, than dances from "Step Up" but not as much as "Stomp the Yard." You can hardly compare the three different dance styles.The flaw I've found about this was that you would have to suspend your belief a little. Yeah, you probably wouldn't believe what you see on screen would be "based on a true story," but you just go with it and have a fun time watching. Out of the three films i've watched, I would consider this as the best.Antonio Banderas is good as always, in this film. The unknown faces in here also gives some good performances. The music in here is really great and energetic. Like I say with my last two dance movies: Watch this movie for the dances, not the plot.

1."Take The Lead" is o.k. and is standard Hollywood o.k. except for the ending, which was preposterous, because it was manipulative and couldn't have happened in real life. (Could anyone believe for a moment that Banderas was so grief stricken, years later, that he didn't have a girlfriend?)2. For those of you who really liked this movie, however, there is a great feature-length documentary on NYC's public school ballroom program/competition and it's called "Mad Hot Ballroom". But this movie is the real McCoy; the entire film. It's also well done technically, but mainly is peopled by real kids; not a professional actor in sight. Story is additionally great because it builds to a highpoint ending that the docu-maker could only have fantasized about at the beginning of the project. I don't want to "Spoiler" it but what a dramatic payoff! And every element of it really happened; you can see it happening!

Compared to other dancing and motivating movies, this was the best. I loved it because it makes a lot of sense,its simple and their is no exaggeration about the students life situations, the acting was great, it was funny as well. The movie had a lot of dancing and at the same time self esteem motivation for the students. The teacher (antonio banderas) also explained the genre of the different types of music and dancing to the students. No gang killing, pregnancy drama, or drug dealing,no continuous tiring racism remarks; they did mentioned some past problems with all of this situations in each family which help support the movie plot and save a lot of time for the movie. Their is a little drama involved, but not the kind that you get sick off hearing and crying, mushy kinda stuff. Its a "you can do it" kind of persuasive movie, either u try until u get it or don't even bother trying. The good part is that the teacher didn't get involved in the students life out side the school setting, he didn't go knocking on their parents door begging them for permission for his students to dance or butting in the students private life, like most movies do. The teacher didn't talk much about his life, he was brief and concentrated more on the students than anything else, he wasn't pushy with them either, he let them do things their way and style with no dramatic changes, like it should be in real life. I would definitely recommend people to watch this movie.

This movie is "inspired by" the story of Pierre Dulaine, who started a ballroom dance school program in New York. But "inspired by" seems to equal "use a real person's name," because this movie feels utterly false in every detail, from its "cute meet" with a thuggish (but good-hearted) student through its two cardboard bad guys to a final ridiculous finale that pushed absurdly unrealistic to new heights. It felt so unlikely, and I remembered that Mad Hot Ballroom, about that same dance program, had featured younger kids, so I googled around and found an excellent review on some website called Townhall by Megan Basham that pretty much said everything I felt, and also pointed out that in fact the program was created not by one person but by two and did in fact start in two schools with younger kids of various backgrounds.But what is probably a very interesting story is tossed out in favor of a very shallow Hollywoodization.This is not to say the movie isn't watchable. The cast is engaging and there are some nice dance numbers in it, and of course Hollywood clichés can have a certain manipulative power. But the problem is, every new ridiculous event in the movie pushed me further from enjoyment and towards irritation.When people complain about Hollywood movies, this is exactly what they're complaining about.