Sing Reviews

Recycling cliches from scores of old musicals featuring teenagers, SING aims to inspire and tug on the viewer's heartstrings. While it doesn't come close to achieving those ends, it does provide some (unintentional) amusement and a great degree of wonder at the sight of age-old "show-biz" cliches being presented with a straight face. Brooklyn Central High is in financial trouble. Threatened with the closure of their school, the students decide to carry through with their annual spring talent competition. In charge of the event is Miss Lombardo (Lorraine Bracco) who, though new to Brooklyn, possesses the street-smarts to keep her charges in line. Lombardo oversees the two teens organizing the event, Dominic (Peter Dobson), a local hoodlum, and hardworking "good girl" Hannah (Jessica Steen). Dominic demonstrates some dancing skill, and soon has a major part in choreographing the show. He takes Hannah to a dance club, and despite their initial misgivings, they are a couple by the night's end. Their relationship is severed, however, when Dominic helps his brother rob the diner owned by Hannah's mother (Louise Lasser). After initially denying his involvement and quitting the show, he returns the money from the robbery, and is beaten by his brother. After reconciling with Hannah, Dominic once again joins the show when he replaces an injured lead dancer. Despite the school's imminent closing, the students revel in their successful production. SING harkens directly back to the j.d. movies of the 50s with alarming sincerity, centering its hokey sentiment around two classic cliches: the misfit rebel and the hard-working girl-next-door. Director Richard Baskin, best known for his work on the scores of NASHVILLE and WELCOME TO L.A., sinks into this morass of cliches with the proper degree of naivete, while the only cast member to emerge (nearly) unscathed is Bracco, who acquits herself nicely in spite of the cardboard nature of her "tough teacher" role.(Profanity.)