User Reviews

"It's like a heartbeat, beat street". Ah the opening credits to a pic I relentlessly saw on HBO. I then practiced my moves in front of a mirror, feeling groovy.

Anyway for two or three years in the early 80s, break-dancing was a thing. Then it quickly burned out. 1984's Beat Street captures the style of breaking when it was at its pinnacle, all popping and locking and spinning and stuff. Heck, you could almost say this movie is frozen in time.

Beat Street is Saturday Night Fever sans the disco and hot pants. The setting is the same (NYC), there's a tragic death towards the end, and well, there's plenty of vibrant dancing. Beat Street has a little more as it almost feels like a talent show or musical minus everyone breaking out into song. I'm not saying that's a bad thing but the extended scenes of DJing, singing, and break battling sometimes deflate the dramatic momentum. And yeah, there's a few, solid dramatic nuggets to be had.

More robust and more mature than those other hip-hop pics of the time (Breakin', Krush Groove, Rappin'), Beat Street has atmospheric direction by Stan Lathan and a use of locales that feels bitingly echt. I mean I've never felt like I was in the Bronx more than with this film. Lathan pumps you up on musical numbers and then provides quieter moments where the troupers can breathe and emote. One kinda outweighs the other but oh well.

Like in "Fever" (mentioned earlier), Beat Street pushes the boomer self-reliance. In tinges, it looks at a graffiti artist, a young breaker, a DJ, and a slick manager trying to break out of their banal existence in a rundown, NYC borough neighborhood. The unknown actors (minus Rae Dawn Chong) do solid work in a flick that's a snapshot of pop culture that unfortunately blew away at the blink of an eye. Still, this "beat" manages to go on.

Closer to reality and containing more depth than "Breakdance", Stan Lathan's "Beat Street" is still a pretty dull show. Again this pic is really only cashing in on the 'breakin' craze but at least we get a little bit of entertainment from the plot, which concerns the lives of three young friends and a younger brother, all growing up in Queens, New York. Each has their own unique talent. One is a hustler, one a d.j., another an artist who creates 'burners', while little bro' Lee is a hot 'hip hop' dancer.

Lathan is unable to generate any real audience interest in the story though, and his young cast are likewise struggling with their characters. Therefore it is left almost entirely to the funky music and the 'fresh' dancing to save the day.

Choreography is again sharp for both club and street scenes, but this alone is not enough to lift ""Beat Street" to greater heights. Unfortunately the film really falls flat late on, after showing a glimmer of hope that it just might get interesting.

Sunday, August 25, 1996 - Video

Some movies you watch because they are classics. Some movies you watch because they mean something to you in particular. Some movies you watch to be enlightened. But a huge number of movies you watch you watch for fun and nothing more or maybe to remember a time when things were different. Such is the case with "BEAT STREET".

In 1984 when the movie came out hip hop music was on the rise as was hip hop dancing. The jerky movements, the spins, the flips, the musically influenced dance style was the rage. Hollywood, never one to let a fad go by untapped, made the choice to bring out several films involving the hip hop scene, almost always by a low budget studio. That year Cannon popped out "BREAKIN'" and its sequel "BREAKIN' 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO". "KRUSH GROOVE" gave Shelia E. a chance to hit the movie screen. "WILD STYLE" featured the music of Fab Five Freddy and Grandmaster Flash.

BEAT STREET came out in 1984 and was one of the first to hit the screens. All of them seemed to play off of the same things, the music, the New York locale and the graffiti art. "BEAT STREET" takes on all of those themes. Kenny is a young DJ living in the Bronx with dreams of being a star one day. Along with his brother Lee who wants to be a professional hip hop dancer and his friends they hit the clubs and private parties held in abandoned buildings.

The possibility of success arrives in the form of Tracy (Rae Dawn Chong), a grad student who invites Lee to show off his moves for her classmates. With no pay and no chance to use it as a stepping stone, Kenny gets upset since Lee had told him Tracy promised him a chance at both. This leads to a parting of the ways until Tracy finds a way to make things right with Kenny. Later he gets that chance at stardom and an opportunity to show his skills at a major nightclub. He just has to show them what he can do.

In addition to this story we have that of Kenny's friend Ramon, a gifted graffiti artists who also dreams of making it big. Ramon also has a young child with his girlfriend and he's trying his best to make things right with her and her family. He works as well as doing his art and finds himself in a battle of wills with another spray paint artist who keeps ruining his works. A face off is inevitable.

But story isn't the main reason for these movies. Much like the musicals of the past it was the song and dance portions of the films that made fans go to them. The movie offers plenty of that for hip hop fans who craved seeing that as often as possible. The film is filled with dance offs and party sequences that are filled with hip hop dancing. Not only that but songs are provided by some of the best performers on the scene at the time including Doug E. Fresh, Grandmaster Mel and the Furious Five and Africa Bambata among others.

The movie fits into the drama category because it's about hope and dreams, some achieved and others that crash to the ground before they can even begin. Yes there is tragedy as well as joy in this film. In the end it is a movie that for those who grew up in the 80s when the music and dancing was just taking off will bring back fond memories. For those young enough to like the music they can now see what their parents were up to at the time. And for movie fans it's another one to just sit and enjoy. Those interested in adding it to their collections will be the die-hard fans. All others will just have a bit of fun and move on.

Teens of the early 20th Century will pop their eyes out in seeing that the "Okay boomer!" image of that later generation or early X's had pretty cool lives, particularly in black and Puerto Rican neighborhoods and especially in the Bronx where hip hop was born. Frankly, this is the 80's equivalent of Mickey and Judy "Let's put on a show!" movie musicals from the late 30's and early 40's, the jitterbugging teen musicals from Universal and later on the Alan Freed rock musicals of the mid to late 1950's into the 60's.

The story is cliche, more episodic and slice of urban life, filled with charming young dancers giving their best effort to act and Rae Dawn Chong is sparkling and likeable. The New York City visuals celebrate an era that will never be repeated, and as others indicate, it's a time capsule of an era, maybe not more innocent, but filled with more hope and possibilities than today. The excitement of graffiti artists discovering an untouched brand new clean train is as exciting to them as finding an available theater was for Mickey and Judy. Seeing this made me want to travel back, and that's a good feeling. However, it's not all spinning and rapping. The later quarter of the film has a tragic twist where the value of life has an impact on everyone. It was like a bigger budgeted episode of "Fame" and equally as big hearted.