Rather than taking the advice of its own title, this film follows the lead of many similar films—Lean on Me, Mr. Holland's Opus and every other movie where an inspirational teacher uses some wild new teaching method to get through to disadvantaged, misunderstood youth. The wild idea this time: Teach ballroom dancing to inner-city high-schoolers in detention.
Of course, youngsters raised on hip-hop won't take to Lena Horne with much enthusiasm. But that sort of initial resistance is to be expected in these movies. It's up to dance instructor Pierre Dulaine (Antonio Banderas) to sidestep their obnoxious behavior, because deep down they're all good kids. They've just never had anyone to believe in them because their parents are all alcoholics and/or hookers.
Though Dulaine is a real person, this story gives the phrase "inspired by real events" its loosest meaning yet. But as preposterous and formulaic as the film is, there's an affability to it that gradually sneaks up on you. Banderas speechifies with such conviction you'll believe ballroom dancing can bring world peace. And once the kids drop the macho posturing act, they all turn out to be amusing and likable.
You forget to wonder what Dulaine's motivation is for being there in the first place, and you don't question the likelihood of there being exactly as many girls as boys in detention every day. And when one teacher becomes hell-bent on eliminating the dance class for no reason, you just accept it. There's always a jerk like that in these movies. The only thing that matters is that these kids make it into the dance competition and win the $5,000 prize so they can show that snotty white bitch from the advanced dance class that she isn't better than they are.
Watching Take the Lead is like dancing for the first time. The steps have been done before, and it's a little awkward and cheesy in the beginning, but after a while you just lose yourself in the energy of it. It's not supposed to have a point. It's just supposed to be fun.