Product Description

The award-winning actor and dancer Gregory Hines stars in this look at the life of extraordinary tap dancing legend Bill "Bojangles" Robinson. This is the story of an incredibly talented man who struggled with the demons of his past and the racism of his time, but still entertained millions with his unique and complex dance style.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #52048 in DVD
• Released on: 2002-02-19
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 101 minutes

Customer Reviews

Hines rules!
At the height of his career, Bill "Bojangles" Robinson was the
highest paid Black entertainer. He died penniless. Bojangles was
considered the best dancer alive and his specialty was tap. He started in
the black-face productions and shocked people when he worked as a solo act.
He was a headliner in Canada which didn't have the same issues with racism
as America. He starred on Broadway and then began making movies
predominately appearing as the Butler to a white star, usually Shirley
Temple. Bojangles was known as "The Man with the Smile" since the
broad smile never left his face while he was dancing. Unfortunately this
Showtime movie shows the pain and anger behind the smile. The pain that
caused a young boy to assume the name of his brother in an attempt to hide
from their grandparent, the pain that caused a string of broken marriages,
and the pain that caused an incessant urge to gamble away his life savings.
Gregory Hines portrays Bojangles. Hines is one of the premier tap
dancers alive. Hines is an incredibly expressive actor without saying a
word. His eyes can speak volumes of what is going through his soul and the
percussive music from his taps tells a story all of their own.
The movie does drag at times and Bojangles isn't the easiest of
characters to like. However the movie is more than worth renting just to
watch all of Hines' tap sequences. The man is an incredible dancer. His
heir apparent, Savion Glover, appears in one sequence that is truly
phenomenal to watch.

I Wanted to Love This Movie
As a fan of tap dancing, I wanted to love this movie. Unfortunately, watching it was an endurance challenge. The movie lacks any sort of compelling story line. It essentially drives home the message that Robinson (aka Bojangles) was a gambling, womanizing s.o.b. I don't expect the film makers to rewrite history, but as presented the story didn't take us anywhere. Yes, the tap sequences by Hines and Glover are great, but they would have been greater without the packaging of the "story."

Should have been fantastic... Something went horribly wrong!
I bought this movie simply because it stars Gregory Hines and themes tap dancing. That should be a recipe for success, Gregory Hines and Savion Glover, two of the greatest tap dancers to have lived, in a movie about tap dancing. Unfortunately if that is also what you are thinking, you will be sorely disappointed.

I watched this with my girlfriend who has been tap dancing for over 19 years, even with my limited knowledge of tap I could tell that Gregory Hines was either screwed over by the choreographer, or what is sadly more likely, already suffering from cancer. He never in the entire movie came even close to tapping up to his skill level, which just made him and Bojangles look bad. The only top-notch tapping in the whole movie was a short 1 or 2 minute scene where Savion Glover busts out, which made the movie worth its purchase price for me. I've seen Bojangles routines danced by other contemporary dancers who aren't even great tappers, and they looked far better doing them than anything Hines did in this movie. It's really a shame.

Now that covers the tap dancing. As for the actual movie, I could have cared less had the dancing been good, but it wasn't, and the screenplay was even worse. First off, the screenwriter was apparently at a complete loss as to how to move the plot forward. Rather than writing a string of excellent scenes which tell a story, the characters often turn and look at the camera in the middle of the scene and "explain" what is going on. I don't know where to start, I was under the impression that voice-over dialogue was faux pas... So what is this? Sinful I'd say. Moving on from that little annoyance, it doesn't get much better, the story itself is weak, something about gambling and his 2nd wife... I watched it 2 hours ago and I'm already having trouble remembering what happened... The directing was atrocious, I love Gregory Hines, for his dancing and acting, he didn't give nearly the performance that he has given in other movies, BAD directing.

Anyhow, I could go on, but that would just be mean. If you worship tap dancing, get the movie for the 1 minute scene of Savion Glover going all out with amazing dance moves. If not, I'd steer clear of this movie, you'd be better of watching a documentary with a bunch of interviews... It'd be a lot mor entertaining.