Bootmen

Take away the stagey but sensational industrial-hip tap dance numbers, and all that's left of Bootmen is cheap, embarrassingly unoriginal, melodramatic-romantic swill. An Aussie import about a rebellious, boy-band-cute steel worker (Adam Garcia, Coyote Ugly) trying to make it as a dancer, this movie is so contrived and one-dimensional it makes Flashdance look like Shakespeare. Directed by choreographer Dein Perry (he created Tap Dogs [VL-3/98]), whose inexperience behind the camera shows in the movie's lackluster point-and-shoot staging, this a sloppy, hollow effort, with nary a scene lasting longer than 15 seconds in the entire picture. Except for the dance numbers, of course, which are so spirited and invigorating they deserve better than to be dropped into the middle of this tripe. Not a necessary purchase. (R. Blackwelder)