Film

Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
 

Stomp the Yard (2007)

Director: Sylvian White

Average user rating
2 reviews

Synopsis

Musical drama about a troubled 19-year-old caught in a rivalry between two college fraternities.

Movie review

From Time Out London

Of all the things to fight about, you’d think dancing would be way down the list. Yet ‘Stomp the Yard’ does everything in its power to sully the good name of the backstreet dance-off by thrusting us into a particularly heated terpsichorean rivalry which ends with DJ (Columbus Short) witnessing the murder of his younger brother. Naturally, he decides to flee to a southern university whereupon he joins a frat house and takes up stepping: an amalgam of body popping, tap, beat poetry, mime and silly costumes (British counterpoint: morris dancing). Sylvain White’s baffling film is propelled by its choppy editing and soap-opera histrionics, inhabiting a world where ‘pride’, ‘honour’ and ‘taking one for the team’ rule the day. The competitive element to this sporting anomaly is never really touched upon, leaving genre expectation to explain away the inevitable outcome of the final step showdown rather than a less-than-credible form of judging which seems to be an entirely arbitrary mixture of whooping and crying. Alongside a subplot revealing the hegemonous perks of joining a fraternity house, there’s little here for British eyes.

Author: David Jenkins 2007-03-13 11:41:11

Time Out London Issue 1908: March 14-20 2007

  • Print this page
  • Send to a friend

User reviews of this film

  • matt zarate said...
    Posted on Jun 09 2008 03:21 i liked the movie because it shows who strong the brother hood is detween DJ(Columbus Short) and Droone(Chris Brown)
    Report as inappropriate
  • Mila said...
    Posted on Jul 19 2007 20:41 There's nothing there for anyone's eyes. The movies bad, regardless of nationality.
    Report as inappropriate

What do you think?
Post your review now

clear rating
Min 1 star. Zero stars will be treated as unrated.

*mandatory fields


Stomp the Yard

Cast & crew

Director: Sylvian White

Producer: Will Packer

Cast: Columbus Short, Meagan Good, Ne-Yo, Chris Brown, Darrin Henson, Brian White, Laz Alonzo, Valarie Pettiford, Harry J Lennix, Jermaine Williams full cast

Genre(s): Musicals, Drama, Romance

Duration: 109 mins

Related articles


Features

Making a name for himself

Making a name for himself

Sin Nombre's Cary Joji Fukunaga learned his lessons well.

To the letter

Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.

Mind over matter

David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.

Fool's gold

Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.

We are the championed

Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."

A history of violence

Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.

True romantic

James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.

Playing in the dark

MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.

Junk bonds

Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.