Average Rating: 4.7/10
Reviews Counted: 59
Fresh: 13 | Rotten: 46
Clumsily staged and brimming with melodrama and trite self-help cliches, this dance movie stays stuck at amateur level.
Average Rating: 4.6/10
Critic Reviews: 21
Fresh: 4 | Rotten: 17
Clumsily staged and brimming with melodrama and trite self-help cliches, this dance movie stays stuck at amateur level.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.3/5
User Ratings: 4,725
Randall Miller's Marilyn Hotchkiss Ballroom Dancing & Charm School compiles an all-star cast to tell an unabashedly emotional story about life, love, and destiny. Robert Carlyle portrays Frank Keane, a man who has been in a deep depression ever since his wife passed away. One day while driving, Frank sees an accident. He investigates the scene to see if he can help and meets a dying stranger (John Goodman), who tells Frank that he was headed to a dance school in order to reunite with a woman he
PG-13, 1 hr. 43 min.
Drama, Musical & Performing Arts, Art House & International, Comedy
Mar 31, 2006 Wide
Jul 4, 2006
$0.2M
Samuel Goldwyn Films
All Critics (62) | Top Critics (21) | Fresh (14) | Rotten (47) | DVD (3)
Miller has all but smothered the charm right out of his Charm School.
The picture trivializes the characters, hinting at depths it can't depict, aiming at a profundity of feeling it can't begin to reach.
Beyond Wahlberg's deft moves, School's dancing is leaden, not charming, and the only challenge is enduring the film's lumbering progress until it finally clicks at the end.
Predictable and decidedly old-fashioned in its sensibility, the film is likely to win over audiences if not critics.
Marilyn Hotchkiss' Ballroom Dancing and Charm School may stumble at times, but at least it gets out on the dance floor and has a good time.
The film moves like a newbie following a diagram of arrows and shoes and counting out loud.
Yet another ballroom dancing movie presents dance as a universal balm that heals life's problems in this mildly inspired dramatic comedy.
Why would Frank drop everything to embark on this lunatic mission? Well, the answer is simple. If he didn't, there would be no movie - and perhaps that wouldn't have been such a bad thing.
A surprisingly-moving message movie about love and redemption filled with sentimental and transformational moments leading to tearjerker of a finale.
A miscast hodgepodge of a genre stew.
That the film was itself borne out of risk invests its message with an honesty and an authenticity more than sufficient to offset its flaws.
Utterly charming.
Strong performances and moving themes are drowned in a sea of sentimentality.
I could believe almost nothing of this under-written, over-emoted saga.
the entire movie is ridiculous
This is a wildly ill-conceived jumble, and not even its impressive cast can rescue it.
There's dancing all right but not a whole lot of charm.
This is perhaps John Goodman's worst performance.
... slight and slurry, like a champagne buzz.
In this death-obsessed movie, the characters' lives flash before the audience's eyes - really, really slowly.
Clunky romantic comedy, which has the annoying habit of turning dead serious at exactly the wrong moment.
Not content to tell two lousy, maudlin stories at once, the movie goes for a full three.
The movie is so bad it brings up a question %u2014 what's the opposite of a comeback film?
Stars for having such a great cast. John Goodman plays a memorable character, and it has Ernie Hudson so you know you want some.
November 22, 2007Super Reviewer
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