Bootmen (2000)

the audience applauded

Good concept, poorly executed.

Don't Believe the Hype

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

I was born in Newcastle where this film was set, and was still living there at the time when this was filmed and when released was very interested in watching it.All I can say is that Adam Garcia was fantastic and showed his amazing dancing skills - he is also a great singer as well as shown on An Audience with Kylie Minogue last year and he is definitely such a versatile performer and one to watch in years to come.Seeing areas of where I grew up in Newcastle was surreal and I even recognised some local faces as extras. The theatre they used when Adam's character was in Sydney was really the Civic Theatre which is located in Newcastle.Sophie Lee has come a long way the past few years and definitely deserves higher recognition - I'm not saying this because she is also a Newcastle girl but I thought she outshone Kate Winslet in Holy Smoke and gave Toni Collete a run for her money in Muriel's Wedding and it was a shame she didn't have a bigger role.Australian movies are really hit or miss and this is definitely a hit, along with The Dish which was released around the same time. The dancing sequence is heartpounding and this is definitely one film worth a look.

"Bootmen" is one of those films which will not have mass appeal but which will appeal massively to those with whom it resonates: A fact which accounts for a meager 1.5 stars from Ebert with a critical majority voting "awesome" according to efilmcritic.com. A sort of "Footloose" meets "Stomp Out Loud" down under, "Bootmen" tells of a young Australian steel worker who puts together a steel-on-steel tap show benefit against all odds. Thumbing its nose at the typical Hollywood excesses (sensationalism and melodrama), "Bootmen" sticks earnestly to it's purpose mixing love, sex, violence, death, angst, and woe with music and tap dancing in a rough sort of Aussie style while waxing to its climactic "feel good" conclusion. A great watch for anyone into rhythm or tap in film, Aussie flicks, or just plain creative movies.

As a resident of Newcastle who is familiar with the Dein Perry story I was very interested in seeing this movie. The fact that it was shot in Newcastle and features a few Newcastle actors only increased my interest. As a local it was fantastic to see our often stereotyped city (we are the sixth largest Australian city) look as good as it does. They didn't just focus on the normal shots of the steel works or the beach, and they used references to places in Newie that only we could get. As a tap-dancing fan it was wonderful to see tap making its way into the cinema in a non-Fred Astaire way. As a movie fan it was great to note that something I assumed to be a chick-flick was actually a very blokey film with a bit of dancing thrown in. Perry and the crew have done a magnificent job in not only opening up the eyes of the world to tap-dancing they've also been wonderful in showing everyone a different side to Newcastle, while still maintaining what we are really about.

The concept is good - to try to capture the style of the "Tap Dogs" and turn it into a feature film.Sadly, the transition to the big screen was not entirely successful. In order to reach the big tap finale, we had to wade through an hour and a half of paper thin plot - nice guy fails to make it in the big city, father-son conflict, brother-brother conflict and small scale organized crime racket.The quality of the acting left a bit to be desired (this is to be expected as the guys were selected for their tap ability, rather than their acting pedigree), and Sophie Lee was ... well, Sophie Lee (I'm yet to be convinced that she is an actor).The bleak industrial landscape and cinematography were quite good, as were the actors in the small supporting roles.So when push comes to shove - was the final tap spectacular worth sitting through the movie? Sure was, it's just a shame there wasn't a bit more of it.