Cuban Fury

Nick Frost has spent his career in the shadow of Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg.  However, to purely consider him as a stooge to their talents is to give the guy a lot less credit that he deserves.  Underneath that overweight outward appearance is an incredibly talented physical comedian and therefore it’s not surprising that the idea of him doing a comedy based around the idea of salsa dancing is on paper a recipe for success.

The film follows Bruce (Frost) who as a child was a salsa dancer of prolific skill, before he had to give it all up due to being bullied for wearing sequins.  We meet him years later where he’s buried into himself and hiding from the world.  That is until his new boss Julia (Rashida Jones) emerges onto the scene.  Discovering that she is a salsa fan he decides to take back the sequins and recapture his youth in an attempt to win her heart.

It’s a fantastic cast, alongside Frost Olivia Coleman stars as his sister Sam, who spends most of the film drunk, but serves as Bruce’s confidant and occasional dance partner.  She’s slightly under served in the role, but her constant enthusiasm for life is amusing.  On the other hand we have Chris O’Dowd as Drew, who must be one of the most horrible human beings to work in an office ever.  He plays it well and you do want to punch him in the face by the end of the film.  Elsewhere Ian McShane is great as the gruff salsa teacher who just likes to drink tequila and play board games.  While Kayvan Novak somehow manages to make playing the stereotypical, over the top, camp dancer friend appear fresh and interesting despite having seen it a million times before.

Yet despite all this the film doesn’t sparkle in the way it should.  It’s funny, with some of the physical comedy being as brilliant as you would expect.  But it’s never hilarious.  It’s a solid 3 out of 5 Sunday evening, in front of the telly movie and it’s never going to be more than that.  That’s not a bad thing, it’s just not a special thing.  The question now is whether Nick Frost can continue to stand alone in the spotlight and I think there is enough here to prove that he can easily become a fantastic leading man.