Tuesday Night is Film Night is here yet again and this week it's off with the slippers and on with the dancing shoes as we get down to some sizzling Salsa action with;
Cuban Fury
There we are then, another film ticked off the list and it was a very good film indeed. So what is all about we hear you ask? (There's no need to shout, we can't really hear you).
Cuban Fury stars Nick Frost as Bruce Garrett who, at the start of the film is a childhood star on the Salsa circuit, dancing in all the competitions under the watchful eye of his tutor and mentor Ron Parfitt played by the aging disgracefully Ian McShane. Then just as the UK Junior Salsa Championship beckons and nationwide Salsa stardom is jsut around the corner, Bruce is confronted by some mean street kids who force feed him sequins and turn Bruce against the one thing he loves, fast forward 20 odd years and you have the start of a fun feelgood movie.
It's nice to see Nick Frost appear in a film without the ubiquitous Simon Pegg hogging the limelight, although Pegg manages to snatch a veritably brief cameo in this film. Frost alone is quite funny, plus the original idea for Cuban Fury was from Frost himself, so it's good see him Pegg-lessly driving a film forward. Anyway, back to the plot.
Bruce is now working for an engineering firm, alongside the boorish and arrogant Drew played very convincingly by Chris O'Dowd, clearly this character trait immediately places Bruce in the underdog position and therefore aligns the story in to feelgood mode. Ally this with the arrival of a new boss into the firm; Julia played by the lovely Rashida Jones and our feelgood film has a love interest as both Bruce and Drew are immediately taken by the new boss's looks. The story rumbles on with some suitably funny filling, supplied by a really good if somewhat unknown supporting cast and we reach the point where we find that boss Julia is into Salsa dancing. Shock! Horror! What will happen next?
Obviously, this is the queue for Bruce to don the heels of fire again and get back into the dancing, in the vain attempt to woo the boss. However, Drew has other ideas and sets out to subvert the attentions of Bruce and bag the boss for himself. Bruce is coerced by his sister Samantha played by the ever-so lovely Olivia Coleman and Bejan played by Kayvan Novak, whose constant middle-eastern and almost incomprehensible chatter pushes the bashful Bruce back to the dance floor. We did notice that it was either that Olivia Coleman got all the best lines, or at least her faultless delivery of those lines was extremely funny, we like her.
Obviously, being a feelgood comedy, the outcome is going to fairly predictable, but that's the whole point, you know where the finish line is, it's how you get there that's important and Cuban Fury does not fail to deliver in that regard. The humour is simple, but funny. The dancing is quick and rhythmic, most importantly the editing is superb, so you don't see where Nick Frost's feet finish and the professional dancers feet start, assuming that they must have cut in between professional dancers and the cast. Unless Frost did all his own dancing. Must check that.
All in all a very worthy film to watch, formulaic, funny and feelgood just what we like to watch here at TNiFN Towers.
TNiFN Rating 83%
IMDB Link
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