Body Rock (1984)

Body Rock, a dance movie without rhyme or reason.

Holy Prancercise, this one is colorful. Here we have a more mature, more adult pop-lock movie that has a very respectable cast but doesn’t really know how to utilize what it’s got. Filmmaker Marcelo Epstein, yikes, definitely made this as a love letter to the street culture of New York at the time, including entire segments hyping up graffiti and breakdance cultures. But regardless of what Lennon preached, love wasn’t all you needed. Some talent wouldn’t have hurt.
Produced by New World and Released September 28, 1984, Body Rock does little to make itself stand out from the crowd. These movies seemed to be a dime a dozen in the eighties. Literally, you couldn’t put a film on without seeing someone doing headspins or tagging up a boxcar in some railyard. This one just happens to have a more "street" edge to it, albeit a manufactured one.
Our main character, Chilly, is calm and cool with his ear to the streets. He knows what's cool and fresh at all times. That’s why he’s an up-and-coming graffiti artist and talented hype-man. He is hilariously played here by Lorenzo Lamas, who is a walking eighties stereotype in this film. He shows off some "taco meat" on his bare chest, gold chains, a jean jacket, and a Lego-man haircut with a bandana, making him look like an extra doofus. Even with all that, it’s remarkable how plain and boring he is.
Chilly is always trying to better himself with the least amount of work possible. He befriends a young breakdancing child, La Ron A. Smith, and after paying the little dancer, gets the kid to teach him breakdancing. This kid is really good, and the filmmaker made sure the audience knew that. We see his dance gimmick multiple times throughout the movie. After only a few sessions, Chilly isn’t just the coolest guy in town; he’s the coolest breakdancer too.
That’s really it for the plot. Chilly’s mom is played by Grace Zabriskie, but it’s an absolute travesty that we don’t get more with her. She’s just smoking cigarettes in bed. And the actual substance of the film is just dance sequence after dance sequence. Do you like those TV shows that just feature one dance crew dance-fighting against another? That’s this movie. It’s literally just meaningless dancing instead of exposition or story building. And that makes it mighty shallow. They try to push a romance between Lamas and Claire, played by Vicki Frederick. But it’s paint-by-numbers Saturday Night Fever Lite. And oh, so forced.
Come for the Lamas ridiculousness. Stay for the great music, mediocre dance sequences, and laugh at the worse-than-soap-opera attempts at drama. There isn’t much else to say about this. Just a warning, if you already hate cheesy dance movies, then you’re going to have a bad time. RottenPop can squeak out at least two stars for this one.
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First Screening: September 28th, 1984 (USA)
RottenPop Rating: ★★