Footloose, Cut Loose

I’m ashamed to say I never saw the original 1984 production of Footloose, especially considering my attraction to dance movies. After recently watching the 2011 remake, I can’t believe I’ve missed out for so long.

When the film began, the characters seemed to fill conventional roles, with every move predetermined.

The plot unfolded as such: a Bostonian bad boy moves into a small southern town, disrupting the dynamics and causing everyone to learn something about themselves by the end.

However, the film harvested interesting characters and plot surprises. Footloose does not find itself on the long list of predictable movies to avoid.  

Three years after a tiny town in Georgia banned dancing within the city limits, Ren McCormack moves down from Boston to stir things up.

His smart mouth gets him in trouble with the law when the sheriff stops him for playing his music too loud. However, the mundane, overplayed role ends here.

On McCormack’s first day at the local high school, he bumps into a football player in the hallway. At this point, most viewers roll their eyes, because the new kid in town has already started making enemies. 

However, after some witty banter, Willard Hewitt breaks into a grin, pats McCormack on the back, and the two are inseparable for the rest of the film.

At his uncle’s suggestion, McCormack goes to work at a cotton gin, where he jokes about learning to read, write and redneck. We see his supervisor step forward to scold him, but instead offers him the job and jokes back.

Just when you think the Bostonian is going to make his first enemy, he makes another friend.

Aside from the surprises in the plot, the characters’ personalities were astonishingly deep. McCormack, for one, isn’t a big fan of alcohol, and he refuses drugs when a burnout offers him marijuana. This isn’t how we imagine the “troublemaker” of the film to behave.

There was only one moment when McCormack was rude to an authority figure. The principal spoke poorly of his mother, who recently died from leukemia. He had spent the past several years taking care of her after his father left, and he wouldn’t stand for anyone talking about her.

One of his best moments comes when he approaches the town council with a respectful speech filled with Bible verses to persuade them to change the dancing ban. When it still wasn’t lifted, McCormack had other ideas.

He planned to throw a prom outside the town limits, but still asked for the preacher’s blessing and permission to take his daughter. McCormack’s character was respectful and confident, and quickly learned the ways of the town.

McCormack and his friends didn’t get the dancing ban lifted like they wanted, but there was an understanding between the teenagers and the church.

By the final dancing scene, everyone was satisfied, which is how it should be. Most people appreciate a happy ending, but endings like these reflect how things work out in the real world.