Breakin'

Breakin' is one of the movies that put hip-hop on the map. It turned disco into a new form of enjoyment. During the early 80s disco faded and from 1981 thru 1983 music groups introduced funk and techno type beats. At that time there was no specific dance to these songs. But I guess a couple of guys from the Bronx created a new dance that interested thousands of people in the metropolitan area. There was graffiti in the subway that displayed a urban form of art. The big boom boxes (large am/fm cassette radios) that young guys carry along the street. This was all hip-hop. The movie just inspired urban youth to do something creative with their talent. Though sadly it quickly sudsided by the beginning of 85'.

Breakin may have been made for one sole purpose to cash in on the break dancing phase but it's still a great film. Yeah the plot 's a bit contrived but who cares the soundtrack and dancing are great and that's all that matters.

Formula dance movie with the distinctly '80s flavor of break dancing added to it. Aspiring jazz dancer Kelly (Lucinda Dickey) teams up with two street dancers, Ozone (Adolfo Quinones) and Turbo (Michael Chambers). They prepare for the inevitable "big audition," as well as dealing with Kelly's villainous former dance instructor and a rival street dance crew. The tension with the rival crew named Electro Rock provides for the movie's most unintentionally hilarious scenes. It's hard to take that crap seriously. Several dangling plot lines are left unresolved, which shows you how much attention was paid to the script. Turbo has a dance number with a broom where you can see the wires attached to the broom handle, which shows how much attention was paid to direction. Objectively, it's a bad movie but not without its charms. Corny in the extreme but some genuinely entertaining moments, as well as some laughs to be had at its expense.

I grew up in a town of 500 people. That is important to keep in mind while I tell this story. A town of 500 people in rural Illinois. No black people. When I was in junior high, my next door neighbors went through a serious breakdancing phase, and they recruited me to be on their gang? Team? Troupe? (what do you call a group of breakdancers? Let's go with "gang" because that sounds coolest) even though I couldn't break dance. I could do exactly one move -- that worm thing where you lay on your stomach and kind of flop your body forwards from feet to head like a centipede having a full body convulsion. Except I couldn't go forwards, only backwards. We called ourselves the Pop Lockers, without a hint of irony. We made matching t-shirts by painting on white undershirts, and even tried to recreate the look of urban graffiti as only a bunch of white rural kids who've never even seen a black person can.

Even in a town of only 500 people, we managed to find a rival break dance gang (maybe the Sharks? Though I might just be confusing my memories of childhood with "West Side Story"). We were always threatening to have a break dance rumble, but it never materialized.

I didn't see "Breakin'" when I was a kid. I only just now saw it for the first time on TCM. But in retrospect I'm guessing my neighbors did, and another piece of that whole puzzle has now fallen into place.

This is not the kind of movie you review. This is the kind of movie you watch if you want to enjoy a corny, pretty bad movie, or you don't watch if you don't. My rating of it is based on how entertained I was during it, not how good a movie I thought it was.

This is also the kind of movie you watch if you want to get a brief glimpse of Jean Claude Van Damme (yes, that Jean Claude Van Damme) dancing in the background of one scene while wearing a black unitard. And let's be honest, who doesn't want to see that?

Grade: B.

Back in 1984, hip hop as a social phenomenon didn't exist. Hip hop was still the "trendy" music from New York City that somehow was gaining the attention of Hollywood. For some, it was great, for others it was the beginning of something that has yet to be recaptured, the innocence of a new and fresh musical artform, and a culture.

Nonetheless, "Breakin'" is a film that takes place in California where Kelly (Lucinda Dickey) is hoping to make it with her dancing. He goes to the beach and catches a dance routine with a few breakdancers, Turbo and Ozone. She loves it, and eventually becomes their friend. One of them finds her attractive, the other chooses to pop his way through life. Kelly's family doesn't want her to be hanging around with the "hoodlums", but Turbo and Ozone simply want to hang out and have fun. Kelly finds herself learning the street-style of dance, and treats it as a serious artform rather than a bunch of guys dancing on cardboard for the hell of it. Looking back, it seems very much like a Hollywood version of what can really happen when two cultures clash (shades of "West Side Story"), but the film has good music, good dancing, a decent story, and it looks back at a time when hip hop as a whole was trying its hardest to gain respect.

Five extra points for Lucinda Dickey, who was easily one of the more beautiful actresses of the 80's.