80s Classics at Their Best: Footloose (1984)

This is yet another film that I never saw, that people tend to have the reaction of "You've never seen Footloose?!" Then I saw that they were remaking it and it was to come out later this year. I figured I better get on this one before that happens at least. I actually never realized that it was Kevin Bacon who stars in Footloose so it was kinda funny to see him show up right away and look so young. It was a little hard to picture him as a high school student since he looks almost the same, but I looked past that and got ready for my feet to start tapping to the inevitable great 80s soundtrack! Jump with the heat and passion of youth to the other side of the break to find my thoughts on this dance classic.


Kevin Bacon plays Ren McCormack who has just moved to a small town in the Bible belt of America. The town is essentially on lock-down, having outlawed rock & roll music and public dancing within the town limits. They're even on the verge of instituting a town curfew. All of this is because of the town's Reverend Shaw Moore, played by John Lithgow. Several years ago, there was a large vehicle accident involving alcohol and a number of teens died. Ever since then the Reverend has been influencing the town to abolish anything that could bring sin into the lives of the youth. Ren can't take it because he loves to listen to his music, and he loves to dance to it. With the town stifling him at every turn, he decides to organize a dance for the senior prom, even if it's against the law.

Kevin Bacon stars as the young Ren McCormack

At first I just couldn't believe that a town would ever get to the point that it would just outlaw dancing. It just seems stupid. It's a hard concept to believe, and so I was right there with Ren as he struggled to comprehend what kind of hell-hole he had landed in. As I watched the movie, I came to understand the sort of crisis this town was in; because of the Reverend's pushes to be moral, some of the townsfolk are even wanting to ban certain books and even burn them. Even the Reverend is against this, and he now struggles to keep the town balanced on the precipice he's lead them to.

John Lithgow is very good as Reverend Shaw Moore

Footloose is really all about the music and the dancing. There are several excuses that get dancing worked into the film, and for the most part they all seem to make sense and don't stand out as strange. Sometimes in movies with dancing, you end up with these large scenes of choreographed dancing. Sometimes they can work, like in Dirty Dancing where all the dancers are the dance instructors at the camp. You can kinda brush it off as "maybe they all just know these moves because of that." I shouldn't pick on that kind of thing too much though, because those scenes are usually a ton of fun anyways. Never the less, the dancing scenes in Footloose often just seem like people hanging out and enjoying the music. They all kinda do their own thing, even if they seem really goofy like some of the guys at the diner at the start. 

Then we come to the "rage dancing" scene in the factory. Ren is so frustrated and mad with everything going on in the town that he storms out of the house. He smokes and drinks and drives out to the warehouse where he can blare his music and the cops won't confiscate his tape. As he gets into the mood of the music, he starts to dance while pounding his car to the beat of the music, eventually running and jumping and swinging all around the factory to the music. While it's an iconic scene and the music is great, it's kinda silly if you stop to think about it... so let's not think about it!

RAGE DANCE!

The acting in the movie was OK, some moments it's good and others it's a little weaker, but this is really all just about the feeling of the movie. More than anything I found myself tapping my feet and really getting into the music. It was also fun to see several types of dancing make it's way into the movie. This is totally a feel good movie and I definitely got that out of it. It's got a real party of an ending and it ends on such a high note that you just wish it wasn't over. The movie certainly isn't without flaws, and if it wasn't for the music I might not like it as much as I did. As it is, I would easily watch this again and I'm looking forward to the remake and seeing what they do with it.