Nick Frost plies his good-guy trademark charm in Cuban Fury. It is a feature that may be guilty of reinventing the wheel, but it does so with enough vigour to cast the warm glow of the familiar with a pulsing chutzpah.
The plot is simple; Nick Frost’s Brue Garrett is an overweight office worker. Way back when – in fact, all the way back to his childhood – he and his sister were swift-footed prodigies, winning trophies and plaudits on the salsa dancing circuit. When a teenage Bruce was subjected to a bullying altercation, he unceremoniously hung up his dancing shoes for good. Dejected and dispirited, he retired and settled for life on a more even keel (or perhaps that should be ‘heel’).
When new boss Julia (a vivacious Rashida Jones) arrives at his workplace, cupid’s arrow strikes Bruce in his plump chest. Belittled through passive-aggressive male banter from alpha-male colleague Drew (a fabulous and deliberately irritating Chris O’Dowd), Bruce resigns himself as the man who won’t ever get the girl.
This pessimistic slide into the shadows isn’t accepted lightly by his supportive, bar-working sister, Sam (Olivia Colman). This is especially the case when it becomes apparent that the subject of Bruce’s lust may well be a keen salsa dancer. Will he raid his locker, dust down his shoes, call up his old cantankerous mentor (Ron Parfitt – played by Ian McShane) and get his limbs a-limbering? Of course he will.
Then again, you knew that already. With a plot that’s safe in the hands of the tried-and-tested, attention must turn to the execution. Director James Griffiths, who cut his hands on a number of television series including the Matt LeBlanc-vehicle Episodes, brings a flighty and colourful edge. He flushes scenes with a propulsive touch; pushing everything forward with fast cuts and a homely soundtrack. There is a panache at work that evokes his past but with a pleasing push into the feature-length format.
In terms of failings, the aforementioned hackneyed plot is an obvious one to levy – Rocky on the dance floor, if you will – but there are other moments that feel a little bit disappointing. For one, there is a car park dance-off that somehow feels slightly anti-climactic no matter how well-intentioned.
There is also a case of soft chuckles rather than guffaws, cackles or bellowing laughter.
Ultimately though, Nick Frost remains a welcome screen presence. Here he shows that he can hold his own and rack up gentle laughs without his sidekick Simon Pegg. He (along with co-writer Jon Brown) has managed to translate his personal passion into a project that may not set the world alight in the same manner as his feet do on the dance floor, but there is enough to commend.
