Michael Fairbanks
I’ve been thinking about Channing Tatum even before the snarky musings of his alleged Instagram burner account recently leaked. Step Up, his debut as a leading man, had its twentieth anniversary last month. Tatum has had one of the most unlikely career trajectories I’ve ever seen. He was initially dismissed as a pretty boy who could dance but not act. Tatum’s reappraisal arrived in 2012, thanks to his unexpected comedic timing in 21 Jump Street and dramatic chops in Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike and Haywire. Since then, he has become a reliably lovable screen presence, garnering genuine critical acclaim for his dramatic turns in Foxcatcher, Blink Twice, Roofman, and the upcoming Sundance darling Josephine. Any movie he does is a must-see for me, particularly after the sensational Magic Mike XXL became my favorite movie of all time. Step Up, a performing arts school dramedy in the vein of 1980’s Fame, spotlights Tatum’s remarkable dancing abilities (cultivated during his days as a male stripper). Despite my adoration of Tatum, I had only seen Step Up once before — with my mother, for our weekly movie theatre outing at the Muvico Pompano 18 in Florida. I had always worried that Tatum’s early acting abilities would elicit some secondhand embarrassment. Thankfully, his performance holds up far better than I expected, even if Step Up is a mixed bag.
Step Up follows teenage delinquent Tyler Gage (Tatum), who spends his days goofing around with his carjacker buddy Mac (Damaine Radcliff) and Mac’s younger brother Skinny (De’Shawn Washington). One night they decide to break into the ‘rich kid’ Maryland School of the Arts and trash their theater. The security guard catches them, and Tyler takes the fall for his pals. He’s sentenced to 200 hours of community service for the school, which initially begins as an “internship” for the all-too-eager janitor. Eventually, he starts making eyes at senior dance student Nora (Jenna Dewan), who is preparing for her graduate showcase. Her dance partner Andrew (Tim Lacatena) hurts himself and has to be quickly replaced. None of the underclassmen make the cut, but Nora notices Tyler’s sick moves when Mac and Skinny visit him in the parking lot. She reluctantly gives Tyler a chance to audition and he quickly shows her that he’s the only guy for the job — despite his dismissive attitude.
Tatum’s acting is certainly not an instant revelation. His best performances capitalize on his puppy-dog sincerity, unconventional for someone of his straight-edge demeanor. In Step Up, he’s tasked with playing the bad boy and there’s a stiffness to the performance. He’s a green actor playing a personality that doesn’t come naturally. Tatum does start to open up a bit once Tyler starts to crush on Nora, which perhaps stems from the actor’s real-life attraction to Dewan. Despite that inherent chemistry, Dewan’s performance is largely Disney Channel material. In fairness, Nora is a bit underwritten. She’s the generic “good girl” who gets her world rocked by having her first meaningful connection with someone outside of it. Even so, Dewan simply isn’t very charismatic, and pales in comparison to a very similar turn from Vanessa Hudgens in High School Musical a few months prior.
Once it’s time to dance, Tatum jolts to life. Step Up is directed by choreographer Anne Fletcher, who worked on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Bring it On and Hairspray amongst numerous others. She gives Tatum the opportunity to flex his skills from more casual settings like the parking lot sequence (in which he effortlessly backflips from atop a car) to more conventional performances like the film’s showstopping on-stage finale. Nancy Richardson’s editing doesn’t always do these sequences justice, often cutting a bit too jarringly through choreography that is working fine on its own merit, but that was a common trope of the era. Even so, these complex dances are a blast to watch.
Most of Step Up is breezy and enjoyable. However, it bites off a lot more than it can chew plot-wise. We’re treated to some drama with Nora’s fellow students that never really finds a place in the story. Most notably, a DJ named Miles (Mario) strikes up a friendship with Tyler that is endearing to watch but largely inconsequential. We watch him struggle to profess his feelings to Nora’s best friend Lucy (Drew Sidora) who is in a relationship with established singer and college boy Colin (Jamie Scott). Colin may get to belt out “Made,” a shockingly good discount Justin Timeberlake single that scores one of Step Up’s best dance sequences, but we know nothing about him other than his general sleeziness. We root for Miles by default, but there’s no true emotional attachment to him despite Mario’s agreeable performance. Meanwhile, Nora’s boyfriend Brett (Josh Henderson) has musical ambitions of his own that he spends most of the film pursuing. He comes across as a shallow and self-centered dude whose rivalry with Tyler fizzles due to his lack of screentime.
Then a tragic and odd second act twist stops Step Up dead in its tracks. Mac and Skinny’s mischief catches up with them. Skinny sneaks off to a party, trailing Mac and Tyler despite specific instructions from his mother to stay home. Once he arrives, Tyler and Mac promptly kick him out and in a fit, he steals a car from local gangster PJ (DeLon Howell) and his goons. When Skinny pulls back up to the party to show off his conquest, PJ and company shoot him dead in the street. Unnecessary Black trauma aside, Step Up is nowhere near prepared to engage in a serious conversation about teenagers who turn to a life of crime. Mac and Skinny seem to live in a well-kept apartment with a loving, if overworked, mother. Meanwhile, Tyler’s foster home, complete with an alcoholic father, is more fraught, despite him being the more well-adjusted character. Mac and Skinny are just up to extra mischief because that’s what Step Up assumes all working-class Black teens in Baltimore are doing. (Anne Fletcher must’ve been really into The Wire). The film egregiously uses Skinny’s death as a catalyst for Tyler to realize that he shouldn’t give up on his newfound dreams of attending the school — even though he’s already quit working with Nora twice by this point.
Step Up comfortably falls into the “better than you remember, worse than you’d hope” category of 2000s sleepover classics. It’s not as electric or tonally deft as Dirty Dancing, but its ambitions were lower. It came out during the crest of a wave of 2000s dancing films like Save the Last Dance, You Got Served and Roll Bounce. If a studio found the right pair of pretty unknowns to slap onto a poster in a cool pose – they could make a huge return on a cheap movie. Step Up was one of the most successful films of this era – spawning four sequels that centered the dancing in more elaborate and absurd set-pieces. One of them was even in 3D. Upping the ante on these musical numbers became such a reliable formula that eventually the cast was interchangeable, with only some supporting characters returning for bit parts in successive films.
Tatum’s run as a leading man would flounder for a while as he postured as a tough guy in several unfortunate flops. Even his brief appearance in Michael Mann’s Public Enemies as the short-lived Pretty Boy Floyd elicited eye rolls. He latched onto the tough exterior that Tyler has to shed throughout Step Up. Perhaps he envisioned his career shaping up like one of his contemporaries, the late Paul Walker. After all, they played similar archetypes: white men who perform the dated notion of being “streetwise” in the hope of blend into settings in which they are clear outsiders. They are barely able to mask a softer center, folding as soon as the right woman makes eyes at them. Walker found his marquee franchise role right away with Brian O’Connor in The Fast and The Furious. While Walker’s performance in that film is far from brilliant, it clearly defined him as a bankable lead for outlandish action flicks like Running Scared or Into the Blue who could also occasionally delve into something sweeter like Eight Below.
Tatum ditched the Step Up series after a brief appearance in Step Up 2 The Streets and as a result did not become reliable in the same way. When he’d appear in flops like Fighting, G.I. Joe, and The Eagle, it felt as though Hollywood was trying to forge a star out of a painfully average guy who just didn’t have what it took. Then, he started to reconnect with an aspect of Step Up that landed: romance. He did films like Dear John and The Vow, which were both box office hits. Audiences paid to see his kinder side; he just needed a more distinct persona that could sell him as a real actor. People saw him as a dope – so he leaned in. 21 Jump Street’s Jenko may be a bumbling fool, but he wears his heart completely on his sleeve. He allowed himself to be as earnest as one might imagine an older and more self-assured Tyler Gage could be. It worked like a charm. His days as a disrespected matinee idol were over — setting the stage for Magic Mike. It’s a much-needed reminder to not dismiss an unproven actor until they’ve been given the opportunity to find their groove.
