Dance or Die

Undistinguished thriller filmed in Las Vegas is a hard-up, shabby affair, but diverting in a curious way tantamount to watching hippos mate. A young dance choreographer in alcoholism recovery comes home from work one afternoon to find that his drug dealing roommate and entourage have been brutally massacred. Soon, he is being threatened by a local gangster demanding the hand-over of some documents he knows nothing about. There's a fish-eyed love story in play as well, and some intermittent dance numbers which are...um...not exactly "Fosse".

A goodly amount of gun violence, cheesy action scenes, and a mild dosage of nudity bring small sparks to this otherwise banaustic endeavor...not recommended, but trash movie lovers may find a glint of redeeming value here.

3.5/10

My review was written in May 1988 after watching the movie on City Lights video cassette.

The bluntly titled "Dance or Die" is a by-the-numbers made-for-video feature with unconvincing plot devices.

Ray Kieffer plays Jason Chandler, a Las Vegas choreographer working on a big show who is threatened by drug magnates after his pal Allan, a drug dealer, is blown away together with numerous guests at a party at Chandler's home.

Chandler is being helped, Alcoholics Anonymous-style, o onqur hi own drug dependency by older woman buddy Kaye. He becomes romantically involved with a beautiful blonde, Laurie, whom he meets in a supermarket, but she turns out to be a federal narcotics agent. Pic climaxes with a bloody shootout and chase nearby to the premiere performanc of Chandler's dance show.

Acting is listless but choe4roegrahy by Minnie Madden is adquate. As with nearly all City Lights Home Video productions, the makeup effects by Judy Yonemoto tend to dominate the rest of the film, with slow-motion photography of dozens of exploding blood packs becoming strictly overkill. The contrast of the "real" blood w ith the fake blood packs of Chandler's dance numbers is overly contrived. Title song is silly, as is an inspirational coda to the story.

I love movies about murder and aerobics! This movie fit the bill nicely. The dance troupe had one guy who just sucked. Awful. This movie had moments where you felt like you were watching a Nagel print coming to life. The choreography plot, well, he didn't do a whole lot of practicing for his big debut. I think they needed to spend a lot more time in the studio and less time boning all the chicks. The interesting thing was they really played up the AA meeting angle. Like you really felt like you were at a real Las Vegas, down on their luck, AA meeting. More satisfying that 95% of the crap that passes for movies these days. I would compare this to "Killer Workout" in enthusiasm. No big twist ending, but still a very passable attempt at dialog. I just wanted to get back to the regular AA meeting. Actually, in retrospect (or I am sobering up) there was some witty writing going on in this movie. I liked this movie.