Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageRooftops (1989)
Director: Robert Wise
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
With such a preposterously dewy-eyed premise, how could this have been anything but awful? Orphaned T (Gedrick) lives in an empty water-tower atop a deserted Lower East Side tenement in New York. In fact there's an entire community of kids up there, who hang out by night in a vacant lot named 'The Garden of Eden', peaceably sorting out their differences through 'combat dance' (a stylised descendant of the Afro- Brazilian martial arts discipline Capoeira, which involves no physical contact). Enter serpent-like trouble in the form of neighbourhood pusher Lobo (Vélez), aided and abetted by nubile young Elena (Beyer), with whom our hero is besotted. Time for teen-love torn apart once more by divided loyalties. Nearly 30 years after West Side Story, Wise's return to the 'street-sussed musical' is painfully disappointing: a parade of frantic, vacuous gestures which, like combat dancing itself, simply never delivers the punch as lithesome muscles sweat aimlessly under clingy vests, accompanied by Dave (Eurythmics) Stewart's blusterous soundtrack. By the time Lobo's henchmen start blowing up water-towers and chucking kids off rooftops, you can't help but sympathise.Author: MK
Cast & crew
Director: Robert Wise
Producer: Howard W Koch Jr
Cast: Jason Gedrick, Troy Beyer, Eddie Vélez, Tisha Campbell, Alexis Cruz, Allen Payne, Steve Love full cast
Genre(s): Musicals
Duration: 95 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Hippies who work for The Man
To celebrate George Clooney comedy 'The Men who Stare at Goats', we look back at six memorable onscreen hippies who fought the system from within
Roland Emmerich's guide to disaster movies
Ahead of the release of '2012', Roland Emmerich offers his ten tips on creating the perfect global catastrophe
Grant Heslov: interview
Grant Heslov, director of 'The Men who Stare at Goats' talks about his old pal George Clooney, his interest in the paranormal, and his fond memories of working on 'Happy Days'
The Coen brothers discuss 'A Serious Man'
Masters of contrary comedy, Joel and Ethan Coen have struck gold again with their latest, ‘A Serious Man’
Ten inspirations behind 'Avatar'?
Time Out ponders the influences behind James Cameron's anticipated space-opera on the basis of the trailer
Michael Jackson's This Is It: review
Kenny Ortega's posthumous concert film is a rousing eulogy for one of pop's great enigmas
Michael Haneke: The man behind the menace
From Cannes to Munich to London, Dave Calhoun tours Michael Haneke's Palme d'Or winner, 'The White Ribbon'
Lone Scherfig talks 'An Education'
Danish director Lone Scherfig was an unlikely choice for a very English affair like 'An Education'. Cath Clarke meets her
How Jane Campion brought John Keats back to life
Time Out gets Romantic with the ‘difficult’ New Zealander about her new film, 'Bright Star'
Time Out's 50 greatest animated films with commentary by Terry Gilliam
In celebration of the release of Pixar's 'Up' and Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr Fox', read our rundown of fifty classic feature length animations
What do you think?
Post your review now