Mad Hot Ballroom

Yet another in the recent string of documentaries about winsome kids--often from disadvantaged backgrounds--excelling in nontraditional areas, Marilyn Agrelo's Mad Hot Ballroom follows kids from several New York City schools as they gain discipline, self-esteem, and mutual respect, while learning the steps of ballroom dancing, and forming into couples and teams to compete in a citywide dance competition. Not all schools approach the contest in the same way: one campus seems focused on the prizes, but the principal at another appears to be more interested in teaching etiquette, while the teacher at a third uses the class more as a means of learning self-control than pursuing victory. The viewer can't help but be charmed by these 11-year-olds struggling to master dances (such as the rumba and tango) with partners who sometimes tower over them, but ultimately Mad Hot Ballroom is too scattershot, bringing surprisingly little depth to its coverage of individual students and teachers, whom we don't get to know well enough to establish a genuine emotional bond. The result is a cannily designed, uplifting crowd-pleaser featuring cute youngsters, but by now this territory has become pretty familiar, and this film needed more flair and incisiveness to really swing. A strong optional purchase. (F. Swietek)