User Reviews

"A maths professor working at a posh school leads a double life : in the evenings he dresses in black leather, rides a giant motorcycle and dances in a hot-hot-hot nightclub. Actually he leads a triple life, since he teaches maths and other subjects to the younger clients of the nightclub. Thanks to his charm and cool he convinces many young people to study, to sit for exams or simply to stay in school."

Does the premise mentioned above sound sane ? If your answer is "yes", then you're likely to enjoy "Lambada" for its warmly inspirational message. If you can't answer because you're laughing so hard lemonade squirts out of your nose, then you're also going to enjoy the movie, although for a different set of reasons.

Me, I fell squarely into the second category and yes, I did indeed enjoy every misbegotten, misfiring second. In fact "Lambada" cheered me up no end, like a well-made Irish coffee after a long walk in the drizzle.

I think this is a truly godawful movie. However, it yields a rich harvest in involuntary comedy. Apart from the main premise, which is enough to fry one's brain by itself, there are many many other defects, such as the non-stop succession of clichés. There's also the fact that many of the actors playing high-school students look at least twenty-five. J. Eddie Peck, who plays the maths teacher / lambada dancer / idealist / apostle of Latino pride, finds it difficult to suggest anything else than baby-faced prettiness, which turns the sight of him being b-b-b-bad to the bone on a powerful motorcycle into comedy gold.

Moreover, the movie touches upon a number of serious societal problems - such as the effects of racism and social inequality on school results - without showing even a flicker of depth, maturity or modesty.

The finale of the movie consists of a triumphant vindication of the maths teacher, who has proven that students from all backgrounds can do well at maths, if given enough attention and encouragement. In the audience his wife listens to his speech with tears in her eyes, perhaps out of connubial tenderness, perhaps because she's just realized she's wasted ten years of her life on a guy who spends his evenings dancing with sexy half-naked girls. It is hard being married to a saint.

Now let's all dance a jolly hypotenuse !

"Lambada" (1990) has a pretty laughable, hackneyed script. The story is also very predictable: Kevin 'Blade' Laird (Eddy Peck) is a high school teacher by day (a bit like Clark Kent) and then he turns into lambada dancing superman by night at the barrio dance club, "No Man's Land," and teaches poor Latino kids about mathematics and other subjects into the bargain (so that they can obtain their high school diplomas). But with all that said, a crazy part of me still liked this film. One reason is the really hot and sexy lambada dancing, against a backdrop of great 1980s music, that creates a lively and exciting atmosphere for a movie that would otherwise have been hamstrung by its poor script and inept plot. The second reason is that J. Eddie Peck (Keven 'Blade' Laird) and Melora Hardin (as his high school student Sandy Thomas) generate more chemistry and sparks together than the vast majority of couples do in the romantic comedies, including the recent "Friends with Benefits." To be sure, "Lambada" is not a profound film about the human condition in keeping with the tradition of the great romance films. But watching Peck and Hardin interact on screen does wonders for the libido (even if the high school teacher ultimately remains faithful to his wife), making "Lambada" surprisingly effective as an erotic film. The third reason why I liked this film is because all the so-called high school students, including Melora Hardin, look like they are in their twenties. As a result, the sexual tension building up between Kevin and Sandy does not look dirty at all. Overall a pretty entertaining movie. 6.5/10