THE NEXT STEP
Reviewed by Harvey Karten, Ph.D. Phaedra Cinema Director: Christian Faber Writer: Aaron Reed Cast:Rick Negron, Kristin Moreu, Denise Faye, Taylor Nichols, Gerry McIntyre, Aubrey Lynch
Everyone knows the expression "Rich or poor, it's nice to have money." Now, "The Next Step" advances our knowledge of life thusly: "Youthful or ancient, it's nice to be young." And, sad to say, maybe kids are right when they think of a guy who has passed his 35th birthday as an old man--but only if you have a career as a professional basketball player or dancer. "The Next Step" tells the tale of a hoofer who leads quite a good life, at least while he has a glamorous job. He's making enough money to splurge at a yuppie restaurant for Perrier champagne and best of all he has his pick of great-looking women with whom he works. He's that rare specimen: a heterosexual male who faces little competition for the heterosexual females in his particular profession.
"The Next Step" is a movie with an apt title about Nick Mendez (Rick Negron) who has a live-in girl friend, Amy (Kristin Moreu), a hormone-crazed woman-on-the-side, Heidi (Denise Faye) and, later on, a lovely French Miss, Michelle (Michelle Pertier) to add to his collection. Amy, a former dancer who now enjoys a career as a physical therapist, seems clueless about her boy friend's peregrinations, but he's taking flak from Heidi, who scornfully refers to Amy as Nick's wife and pressures him to split and move in with her. Nick's world changes suddenly when his current gig in a Broadway show closes and his agent, later his choreographer, shy away from him: a man who, in his mid-thirties, is washed up. But Nick loves his job and is determined to gain a principal role in a new musical about youthful gangs. To cover himself meanwhile he takes a restaurant job while anticipating a series of auditions for the big musical, where he will pit his experience against a more youthful group of aspirants.
A large number in the cast of this picture are themselves professional dancers and, in fact, the "aging" Rick Negron is currently in the chorus of the big Broadway musical "Ragtime." As such, many performers do better on the dance floor than in the acting department, but writer Aaron Reed has peppered the movie with enough sharp dialogue and humorous situations to keep this high-energy indie absorbing. Older members of the movie's audience will identify with the geriatric couple who wander into a restaurant without realizing that the place seems to have targeted the under-35 crowd. Asking for fish and salad and a well-done baked potato--no oil, no anchovies, light on the spices--they provide a touch of humor in a finely honed vignette, returning the undercooked fish because they "didn't come here for sushi." When Amy, Nick's live-in companion, wants her man to move with her to Fairfield, Heidi warns, "You go out to Connecticut, you're gonna die a slow and painful death." In another pithy slice of life, Nick takes a job in an all-male strip bar and, when told by fellow waiters that the real money is made after hours, he encounters a disastrous situation with a middle-aged woman who is shocked when asked for money.
Donald Byrd provides the choreography in a movie that recalls "A Chorus Line" and "All That Jazz," and Christian Faber's direction is particularly impressive in two quick scenes which involve Nick's imagination.
"The Next Step" is a sexy comedy-drama about a man's refusal to come to grips with reality, the penalty he pays for compulsive womanizing, and his ultimate redemption. When Box Office, an online journal, reviewed the movie, its critic held that the work "never leaps above 'All That Jazz'/ 'A Chorus Line' cliches." Now, "A Chorus Line" you can keep, but "All that Jazz" was one terrific picture. A reviewer can do worse than to compare Faber's offering to Bob Fosse's 1979 show-stopper. "The Next Step" focuses intensely on its lead character, who turns in a sympathetic performance as a man who faces what all of us must come to terms with some day. Not Rated. Running time: 96 minutes. (C) Harvey Karten 1998
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews