Shall We Dance? (DVD)

Who exactly is this movie for? That is probably the best thing to think about before we actually get into it too much.

Shall We Dance? tells the story of Jack Clark (Gere) a man who has lost the happiness from his life despite the perfect family and the perfect job. He seems to want something to escape his daily routine when he is drawn to a dance studio and begins taking ballroom dancing lessons.

So what drew him in? Well, Jennifer Lopez standing in the window in her tights would do it for me, and it did it for John as well. The key to John's ensuing happiness is the fact that he hides this part of his life from his family, which is certain to bite him in the ass if he is caught keeping secrets.

The one thing keeping this from being a boring flick is some very good direction from Peter Chelsom as he knows just when to crank up the volume a notch and bring the audience's attention back into the film, and he even points out specific scenes where he felt this was necessary on his audio commentary.

Another key factor to this film keeping audience attention is the great soundtrack featuring a fabulous song by Peter Gabriel as well as a couple of great songs by the Gotan Project, and if you haven't checked them out, do so as their Latin electronic sound is awesome.

The special features on this one don't bring a lot to the table that isn't really all that evident from watching it. You can tell they put a lot of time into learning the dance steps and you can tell they had a great time on the film, but if you aren't convinced you can check out the 20+ minute behind-the-scenes featurette. What is probably the best of the bunch is the feature on the music for the film as well as the sexy music video featuring The Pussycat Dolls as they perform their rendition of the classic "Sway".

If you like ballroom dancing there is also a short documentary featuring its history as well as you get the standard group of deleted scenes, which contains an alternate opening featuring a musical prelude, music provided by the Gotan Project.

Overall, this is a film primarily for an older crowd, not to say it won't find its way into the hearts of some younger audience members, but the Richard Gere and Susan Sarandon inclusion pretty much guarantee its target audience. I will say though, that I am 27 and enjoyed it and it will make for a good rental if you wish to make your girlfriend happy one night... grin and bare it tough guys out there, we all know you have a soft spot in there.