Just Bring It
This
cheerleader movie lacks conflict, but entertains nonetheless.
Only
the
Which is not to say that being a
cheerleader isn't hard work above and beyond dodging the advances of all the
Lester Burnhams and Ted Bundys of the world. Anyone who has ever worked in
customer service knows how hard it is to remain perky and cheerful for three
straight hours; doing that while jumping up and down and balancing precariously
on a colleague's outstretched arm has to require great skill and practice.
These women (and, nowadays, guys too) are indeed athletes. So why not use them
as fodder for a sports movie? The porn industry has already exhausted most of
the other possibilities, after all.
Well, Bring It On
isn't exactly a sports movie. It also isn't quite a titillation movie. It's
sort of a parody, but not really, because it takes the requisite athletic
ability seriously. But it's never quite clear whether director Peyton Reed
means to mock or praise, to the degree that a key character's emotional low
point received howls of laughter from the audience. And yet the film is
infectious, like one of its many original titles, Cheer Fever. It grows
on you. It's even self-aware enough to begin with an audacious cheer routine
that actually apes American Beauty in parts, while the girls chant such
lines as "I swear I'm not a whore" and "You can look but don't
you hump." Hell, the name of the high school they attend is Rancho Carne.
Kirsten Dunst plays Torrance
(also known as Tor; nothing like evoking memories of a bald Swedish wrestler
turned Ed Wood protégé when naming one's daughter), who is voted head
cheerleader when the retiring Tori Spelling-esque Big Red (Lindsay Sloane) goes
away to college. Over the objections of her brattier squadmates ("This is
not a democracy -- it's a cheer-ocracy!" "You are being a cheer-tator!"),
she hires on the new misfit transfer student Missy (Eliza Dushku, Faith on TV's
Buffy the Vampire Slayer), who, being from L.A., is totally goth and
well versed in physical combat. Unfortunately, Missy also brings with her the
source of the film's conflict -- the revelation that Big Red stole all the
squad's routines from a high school in East Compton ("I know you
don't think a white girl made that shit up," declares that school's head
cheerleader). On the other hand, she does have a sexy brother who likes the
Clash ("Is that your band or something?" wonders Tor), and who,
despite being in high school, looks old enough to have been a fan while the
band was still touring.
Among the film's more amusing
conceits is the idea that while the cheerleading squad are award-winners, the
football team absolutely sucks, consisting of glazed-over dummies who address
everyone as "Fag" before high-fiving and laughing moronically. And
the dialogue comes fast and furious; there may be one too many variations on
"She puts the itch in bitch; she puts the ass in massive" and so on,
but there are also some surprisingly smart throwaways, like when Tor tries to
get her father to sponsor the South Central team by sarcastically addressing
him as "Mr. Level Playing Field."
Unfortunately, there is a
complete lack of tension, mainly because there aren't any antagonists, and
every problem seems to be promptly solved with a group hug. The South Central
team are nice people, and deserve to win, but we don't know enough about them
to fully root for them. We know more about Tor's team, but can we really root
for the rich whiteys to crush the dreams of inner city youth, no matter how
much we may like Kirsten Dunst?
Bring It On will fade from memory very quickly, but
is pleasant while it lasts, and does make a case that cheerleaders are more
than, as one character puts it, "dancers who have gone retarded," if
not always by much.