Bootmen

Directed by Dein Perry, Bootmen follows Adam Garcia’s Sean as he attempts to find success as a tap dancer and eventually puts together his own troupe of performers. Filmmaker Perry, working from a script written with Steve Worland and Hilary Linstead, delivers an affable yet often egregiously familiar drama that seems to have emerged from a template for movies of this ilk, as the picture progresses through a surprise-free narrative that essentially (and eventually) touches on almost all the expected plot points and developments – with the far-from-fresh atmosphere compounded by a periodic reliance on elements of a decidedly underwhelming nature. (Sean’s ongoing encounters with a villainous local are certainly as tedious and needless as one might’ve anticipated, to be sure.) There’s little doubt, then, that Bootmen benefits substantially from the agreeable, charismatic efforts of Garcia and his uniformly appealing costars, while the unabashedly crowd-pleasing third act, which is admittedly just a little on the protracted side, ensures that the picture concludes on a decidedly (and palpably) positive note – with the final result a decent-enough endeavor that succeeds in spite of its less-than-original execution.

**1/2 out of ****