Latin-flavored 'Dirty Dancing' dances rings around the original

By Jack Garner
Gannett News Service

"DIRTY DANCING": HAVANA NIGHTS (PG-13) Three Stars (Good) The "Dirty Dancing" concept is back in a spicy, much-improved variation that details another girl's coming of age on a dance floor. However, the locale this time is Havana, Cuba. Diego Luna and Romola Garai co-star for director Guy Ferland. Lion's Gate, 86 minutes.

Overheated theatrics and bad (but somehow memorable) dialogue like "Nobody puts Baby in the corner," weren't enough to keep "Dirty Dancing" off nearly everyone's short list of favorite guilty pleasures of the 1980s. Patrick Swayze's sexy turn as the dance instructor shot him to short-term major stardom.

Now the "Dirty Dancing" concept is back — in a spicy, much-improved variation.

"Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights" tells of another girl's coming of age — also on a dance floor. However, the locale is pre-Castro Havana, Cuba, where 18-year-old Katey Miller (fresh-faced Romola Garai) has moved with her family. It's Cuba's user-friendly days before Batista's fall in the late '50s, when Havana was a Caribbean playground for Yankees. Katey's dad has a job with an American company with offices there.

Katey has trouble making friends with other American kids on the island, especially since they're mostly snotty rich kids who look down their noses at the Cuban pool boys and waiters who served them at the country club.

The decent and quietly rebellious Katey strikes up a friendship with a sweetly charismatic local named Javier Suarez. He's played with ingratiating charm by "Open Range" star Diego Luna, a talented up-and-comer who was first introduced to American audiences in the hot Mexican import, "Y Tu Mama Tambien."

Javier is nervous and reluctant to mix with the American girl, but he eventually starts showing Katey the sights in Havana and his favorite dance club. Before you know it, they're dancing together. Katey knows she has to hide her new relationship from her parents.

But will Katey and Javier have the nerve (as a mixed-ethnic couple) to enter the big dance contest at the conservative, Yankee-dominated country club? Does Coke mix well with rum?

Director Guy Ferland and his writers take only the basic template from the original "Dirty Dancing," and then make it their own with new and different characters and a much-improved, tropical setting (with San Juan standing in for Havana in 1958). Best of all is a fabulous, Cuban-dominated sound track that reflects the current explosion of Latin culture in mainstream entertainment.

And, just for old time's sake, Swayze makes a cameo appearance. He has two brief scenes as the club's dance instructor (what else?) and even gets to dance a little. I guess you can't keep that baby in the corner, either.

With its likable young couple, Caribbean locales and great Cuban music, "Havana Nights" knocks the original "Dirty Dancing" off the dance floor.

Rated PG-13 for sensuality.