Martin Henderson

Reviewed by Rosie
April 27, 2006

"Let me get this straight, my best friend wants to become ballerina?" This was one of MH's lines that I thought was real funny. OK, let's see!

Things I looked forward to seeing when ordering this movie:

• Seeing MH's first feature film and probably the earliest work of his that I will see.
• Seeing Radha Mitchell's performance since from the recent pictures it seems that she and MH are an item right now. At first I thought this was going to be the first movie of hers that I see but checking imdb I have learned that I have seen her in "Finding Neverland"!

Things I could not buy:

• Matt being a high school student. Russell Page who plays Matt was 29 or 30 when this movie was filmed in early 1998 and I thought he did look his age. What made it even worse was pairing him with MH who was 23 at the time and looked even younger. When they were both side by side in a scene I thought Matt for sure did not belong in high school.

• A teenager not being able to handle schoolwork, rugby practice, and ballet rehearsal at the same time. All my friends from high school and people I hangout with did real well in school, we participated in one or more sports (I hangout mostly with the basketball team and track team), most if not all, hold part-time jobs, and we did volunteer work, just because we were told it looked good on our applications, not because we were considerate people at that age, LOL. So Matt looking at the clock, while at rehearsal, just before 9 pm and then camera going on his face showing him with pain and terror was unreal to me. No teenager I knew wanted to call it a night at 9 pm. Actually the night would start shortly after 11 pm for people I knew in high school.
• Tamara appearing as being smart. In the production notes it was stated that the casting people wanted to get someone who looked smart and not just beautiful to play Tamara, Matt's girlfriend, and that is why they picked RM. Well, I thought, Tamara not only did not look smart, she did not say anything remotely interesting. I thought she actually was portrayed as a spoiled 13-year-old rather than a senior in high school. And I thought some of Tamara's scenes were truly painful to watch.

Characters I thought were useless:

Of course every good high school drama should have one or more bad guys to make life difficult for the good guy. Right? Right! So yep we got our couple of bad guys. One of them is the school superintendent, Mr. Power, and the other one is one of the guys in the rugby team, never cut his name, who is very jealous of Matt for getting all the attention and glory! However, their characters were not that prominent. I think a bad guy has to have more visibility, more power, LOL, to be convincing that he is a bad guy, LOL. Anyhow, Mr. Power, was annoyed with Matt because of the fact that he thought Matt did not come from money and fame like the other students and wanted to make trouble for Matt and eventually kick him out of the school. Oh, yes, that is another thing that were difficult to buy, maybe I should move it up there, LOL! Anyhow, Matt has been at this school for three years now, and if Mr. Power had any power, LOL, he had gotten rid of Matt during his first year there, so why Mr. Power thinks that he can get rid of Matt now, in the last few weeks of high school, were Matt's popularity is at its highest, is beyond me, LOL! And the other guy just badmouthed Matt and his only role was to inform everyone at school that Matt was dancing in a ballet production that night so that everyone could go and ridicule Matt. Of course his plan backfired and everyone, of course, just loved Matt's performance.

Things I liked:

• RP's dancing. He was one talented dancer. True that I do not know anything about ballet dancing, but I am sure it is hard, and he danced so effortlessly and made it look so easy.
• Tom and Matt's relationship. In one scene Tom tells Matt something like "The quality of my life depends on success of your life. I am living in your shadow." But I think Tom really liked Matt. In the same scene he asks Matt if he remembers when he first came to school and how nobody wanted to get to know him. And Matt answers, but you did, to which Tom replies, "Yeah, I am suck of an opinion." I thought this was one funny line and MH's expression while saying this line was hilarious. So my understanding is that Tom wanted to be friends with Matt even before he got popular and admired by everyone. I thought Tom looked out for Matt, more like a big brother looking out for his little brother who has no idea what he is doing. So of course Tom looking younger than Matt did not make this fact too easy to buy!
• Matt and his dad's relationship. Dad was very admirable of Matt. It did not matter if Matt played rugby or if he danced, dad just loved him, cheered him and admired his talent. Of course, dad got a bit annoyed and maybe hurt when he found out from others that Matt was dancing in a production. He was puzzled of why Matt had not mentioned it to him. He had thought they had a strong open relationship and he was portrayed as being very supportive of what Matt wants to do, which was very refreshing to see. I guess some dads want their sons to do the "manly things" as it was repeated over and over in this movie, LOL.

Why I thought this movie was called "Kick":

At first I thought because the main character played rugby. But then I thought the players do not kick the ball in rugby or do they? I think they sort of carry the ball from one side to the other, of course I could be wrong, I have no knowledge of this game. Then I thought maybe because the main character danced ballet. But then I think in ballet they sort of jump up and move their hands and feet gracefully while coming down, they do not kick, or do they? Then I though maybe because Mr. Power or Matt himself wanted to kick Matt out of the path that everyone thought Matt should take, a path to a great future as they saw it. Or maybe it was called kick because Tom wanted to kick some sense into Matt and keep him on the right path as Tom saw it. And than I thought no it was called kick because of "kick in discovery" or more precisely "kick in self-discovery".

A colleague of mine is a physicist and sometimes during lunch he talks about his views of things from a physicist point of view, LOL, I just love hearing him talk, and I have told him so. So now he has made it his mission to educate me in everything physics. When I was going on vacation he gave me two physics books to read, he instructed me to read one on a plane ride going and one coming back. Needless to say that I thought he was out of his mind, LOL. I thought who could read a physics book, with my limited knowledge of the subject, in matter a few hours. And of course I was wrong. They are not actually physics books in conventional way, but compilation of lectures and talks given by Richard Feynman, a famous professor of theoretical physicist, who did not only understood the concepts but could easily explain it to someone with no background in physics. OK, I am digressing here; I just wanted to say that in one of his books he kept repeating "the fun in finding things out, the kick in discovery." That is where I got the above phrase, LOL.

One more thing I want to say about the other Feynman's book that I read, yep, I got to read both of them as I was instructed, LOL, was that he was asked to give series of lectures on a subject that he was not too sure how it would be perceived. So he prepared the lectures and decided to go to New Zealand to present them! His reasoning was that New Zealand was far enough that if the lectures were not successful it would be okay. I started laughing when I read that, not just because MH is originally from there, but because of what a difference 30 years makes (Feynman gave the lectures in 1979 at the University of Auckland). Anyhow, then I started thinking professors these days do not have this luxury, if they say something interesting and/or controversial everyone in the academic world will find out in matter of a few hours after the talk. And than I started thinking it does not matter which country an actor is from, or in which country he/she has made a movie, or from which country we can buy the film, or in which country we are living right now, we are an informed generation, LOL, especially when it comes to entertainment, LOL, we know about any movies that is made, when it comes out, when and were can we buy them, we see them, and then proceed to talk about them to everyone no matter were they are living at the moment, LOL. Can you imaging our lives without Internet these days?

Anyhow, back to "kick in self-discovery", I thought Matt, Tom, Claire (Matt's dancing partner) and David (Matt and Claire's dancing instructor) all discovered something in themselves when they kicked themselves out of their comfort zone. First Matt, of course, by trying to dance, even though everyone implied to him that it was a wrong thing and "unmanly thing" to do, LOL. But he went after it nonetheless, and not only he proved everyone wrong but he also discovered how alive he feels when he dances.

Next was Tom, who after having an argument with Matt, where Matt told him to stop running interferences for him and go have a life, decided not be Matt's "shadow" anymore, and be a new person. He discovered that he is capable of doing that, to be his own "shadow" instead of some else's, LOL.

There is one scene that after Matt and Tom had an argument, Tom comes back to their room and puts up a bed sheet separating his side of the room from Matt's. That was a hilarious scene, kind of a childish for a high school senior, but funny nonetheless.

Next Claire, who admitted to Matt that if she knew that this production was going to be David Knight's new company she would have never auditioned for it. She says that she has a tendency of finding good opportunities and then trying to stay away from them if she can help it, and if by some chance she could not stay away she always feels like a fraud and is ready to be caught. However she not only got the lead role in the play "Romeo and Juliet" but also did an amazing job and discovered how she had held herself back.

There is one scene where Matt comes to tell Claire that she got the part of Juliet and Matt is going to be her Romeo. Claire is mad at Matt, because of his lack of interest in the play, and tries to get away from the fire escape. Someone tells Matt that Claire is leaving from the other side and Matt goes to the back of the building to catch Claire. At this point Claire is in the top level and Matt on the ground, I thought that was a nice touch because of the balcony scene in the "Romeo and Julie" play.

And lastly David who decided to start a dancing company with unknown dancers. At the beginning he says that everyone is telling him he is crazy for attempting to spend time training nonprofessional dancers, but he says he wants to prove everyone wrong and he discovers that he can successfully train nonprofessional dancers to become a great dancers. His little production, which at first was going to perform just in a small theater, gets the recognition to perform at the Sydney Opera House where much larger audience gets to see it and admire both the production and the unknown dancers.

I think MH for sure stole this movie, even though he had a supporting role. The only funny scene that did not involve Tom was toward the end, when Tamara feels that she has been neglected by Matt and goes to his room. As she goes through his stuff she finds a pair of tight, when Matt walks in Tamara holds the tight up and asks how long has this been going on, to which Matt answers seven weeks and that he has not been able to control himself, he feels so alive, so happy. Now at this point Matt thinks that by finding the tights Tamara knows about him dancing, however, Tamara thinks that those tights belong to another woman who Matt has been seeing secretly. Then Matt assures her that it is almost over and goes to hug Tamara, tells her that how good they look together and that Tamara should go see them being together. Tamara’s face expression in this scene is so funny, thinking that Matt wants her to watch Matt and another woman being "together", LOL, I thought RM did a good job in this scene.

Not surprisingly, MH got an AFI nomination in the Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role category for his portrayal of Tom. Apprently, he was not feeling lucky, LOL, and he did not win. There is another funny scene in this movie were Tom says: "looking good and feeling lucky" as he puts on Matt's rugby T-shirt to go out partying. I thought, obviously MH has gotten the "looking good" part under the control, LOL, so hopefully one of these days he is going to get the "feeling lucky" part under control as well and win the nomination. Actually I truly think he should have won it for this role. His acting was flawless here.

Oh and one last thing, life-imitating-art, Tom was admirable and secretly in love with Tamara, and now some seven years later MH and RM are an item, LOL!