Some years ago I was privileged to see Tap Dogs in Sydney, the hit live (very alive) tap dancing show that has since toured overseas to great acclaim. Tap Dogs (more like Tap Mongrels to my mind) was one of the best live shows I've seen.

Noisy, lunging and lively, Tap Dogs was superbly entertaining for anyone from 8 to 80. Get to see Tap Dogs if you can. Those unfamilar with Tap Dogs may have been introduced to them through the Sydney Olympics Opening Ceremony which had a terrific Tap Dogs/ Bootmen segment

The lead dancer at the Olympics was Adam Garcia who stars in the film. Tap Dog's choreographer and lead dancer is Dein Perry who has devised and co-produced this screen version, - which puzzlingly was called Bootmen instead of Tap Dogs. Must be some corporate thing.

Tap dancing isn't an art form that has enticed patrons into the cinema in great numbers for decades, not since the Fred and Ginger days. Dien Perry and his Tap Dogs needed to overcome the effete, penguin suited, debonaire stink about tap and did this by creating a rutty, masculine, industrial form of dance; a fast moving, vigourous, up yours with a grin bash about, within a set built from steel that clanked when it was hit.

The Tap Dogs/Bootmen style is enhanced by the use of differing materials to tap on, notably steel and wood. You'll really enjoy that!

Bootmen, in concert with just about every other dance film that has ever been made, has built a movie around a big production number and the rehearsal period. The production number, set in an unused steelworks shed in Australia's heavy industrial town of Newcastle, is strong, with shades of the Olympics segment in that it includes a large cast of dancers surrounding the main troup of five.

The rest of the film is loose to say the least, especially in the first half until the romance between Adam Garcia's lead dancer Sean and Sophie Lee as his hairdresser girlfriend becomes cemented. In fact the boy/girl thing seems to be a bit of an issue in the film.

We are left with no doubt that these boys are real rugby league playing boys, and into girls not boys, even if that turns out to be not entirely true. I suppose that it has been considered by the Tap Dogs franchise that a major reason why the public haven't been trooping in in their millions to see tap dancing (until Tap Dogs) is homophobia. They weren't about to challenge that with Bootmen.

But that has produced it's own problem. I found the first half of the film to be too blokey, a bit too simplistic. Fellas with their flannelette shirts tied around their waists can only be mildly interesting after all, but the cast did well with a limited script especially Adam Garcia, Sophie Lee and Sam Worthington as Sean's brother.

We have recently been blessed with two good dance films in our Cinema at the moment.

Center Stage is terrific and Bootmen a worthy encore.

3 Tappin' Flys