Dance movie a mis­step

Cuban Fury (M)
Starring: Nick Frost, Rashida Jones, Chris O’Dowd.
As romantic comedies go, Cuban Fury isn’t very funny or focused, but it’s still an enjoyable-enough movie about finding lost passion, with an affable protagonist and fantastic dance scenes.
Nick Frost stars as Bruce Garrett, a former teen salsa champion who is now overweight and washed-up 20 years later.
But his love for dance is rekindled when he meets his beautiful new boss Julia (Rashida Jones).
Cuban Fury is much better than Silver Linings Playbook, the Oscar-winning dance-centric movie of 2012, as the hero and the love interest are both likeable characters. However, most of the elements in Cuban Fury don’t fit together well.
Frost and Jones have endearing chemistry, but Jones has too little screen-time to make much of an impression.
The film has themes of tough love and not letting the world crush your ambitions, but the comedy can get very mean-spirited, especially from the
despicable villain, Bruce’s smarmy colleague Drew (Chris O’Dowd).
The dance sequences are dazzling spectacles (there is even a cool dance
fight scene of sorts) and the visual design is breathtaking, but the camera is often either too close or obstructed by other dancers to properly show Frost’s moves.
So, Cuban Fury is a film of sustained hits and misses, but it’s still worth a
watch when it comes out on DVD.
– Seth Lukas Hynes