Free Style

Director William Dear's Free Style is many things: formulaic sports story, teen romance, search-for-absent-father tale, even a sermon about racial differences. None of these approaches work well, but together they're downright ridiculous. Corbin Bleu (High School Musical) replaces his usual exuberance with deadly earnestness in the role of Cale, a hard-working high-school kid who helps his single mom (Penelope Ann Miller) by holding down two part-time jobs and caring for his kid sister (Madison Pettis), whose queries about their mixed ethnicity evoke pious platitudes from her brother. Cale's major interest is motocross, and he races on weekends in hopes of clinching a spot on the tour. Unfortunately, both sponsor and girlfriend dump him, but in a quick reversal of fortune, a search for a new bike takes him to a nearby ranch where he discovers not only a wrecked cycle to repair but also a gorgeous young Mexican girl, Alex (Sandra Echeverria), who will become his new squeeze if her father allows it. As if all this weren't enough, Cale also locates the dad who abandoned the family years before. This combination of treacle, coming-of-age blarney, and surprisingly anemic motocross action predictably progresses to the Big Race, the outcome of which is foreordained, although screenwriters Jeffrey Nicholson and Joshua Leibner throw in an absurd twist. Not recommended. (F. Swietek)