Dirty Dancing (1987)

Directed by Emile Ardolino. Starring Jennifer Grey, Patrick Swayze, Jerry Orbach, Jack Weston, Cynthia Rhodes, Lonny Price, Jane Brucker, Neal Jones, Kelly Bishop, Max Cantor, Charles Coles, Wayne Knight. [PG-13]

Utterly predictable fluff of a young Jewish girl (Grey) spending a few weeks with her family in the Catskills and falling for the dreamy dance pro (Swayze) on the hotel staff who teaches her a thing or two about feeling the rhythm, letting go, learning self-confidence, and dancing, er, dirty. Sleeper hit turned Swayze into a heartthrob star, but the script has clumsy character misunderstandings out of a bad rom-com, and is peopled by at least two or three stereotypes too many. Teases the edges of darker and more substantive material (prejudice between races and classes, a messy abortion sub-plot, etc.), but really just wants to show two good-looking people make gooey eyes at each other while gyrating to wall-to-wall dance tunes. That soundtrack mixes golden oldie classics with a handful of likably corny modern pop songs, including the Oscar-winning “(I’ve Had) the Time of My Life” and “She’s Like the Wind,” a song that was actually sung and co-written by Swayze. Its crowd-pleasing qualities can’t be completely refuted, though, and the dancing is pretty good for its type. Most remarkable about the fact that Grey and Swayze work fairly well together onscreen is that they evidently couldn’t stand each other when they made Red Dawn a few years earlier. Later remade for television and followed by a prequel with entirely different characters.

46/100