
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, April 27, 1993                   TAG: 9304270098
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BOB STRAUSS LOS ANGELES DAILY NEWS
DATELINE: LOS ANGELES                                LENGTH: Medium

`SWING KIDS' SCRIPT A LONG WAY FROM HIP

It's the most misconceived movie musical since "Newsies." While on technical and emotional engagement levels, "Swing Kids" is something of an improvement, its insistently ridiculous - and unforgivably trivializing - premise makes an all-dancing, period newsboys' strike movie sound like fun.

We're in 1939 Hamburg where, we're unconvincingly told, young hepcats are just wild about jitterbugging to Benny Goodman tunes.

However, writer Jonathan Marc Feldman's attempts to turn it all into a kind of proto-Beatlemania, adolescent rebellion metaphor is all left feet. The film is clunky and obvious whenever it's not making the horrid miscalculation of calling Nazis bad simply because they can't dance and don't understand teen-agers.

Peter ("Dead Poets Society's" Robert Sean Leonard), Thomas (Christian Bale, the once promising boy from "Empire of the Sun" whose last movie was - ulp - "Newsies") and Arvid (Oliver Stone favorite Frank Whaley) are three longtime buddies and immensely stylish swing dudes. Peter and Thomas tear up the floor at underground big band venues, while disabled Arvid plays guitar like his hero, Django Reinhardt.

When Peter gets caught stealing a radio for his disabled pal, Kenneth Branagh's friendly Gestapo agent arranges for the lad to get off - if he joins the Hitler Youth. Peter, whose father defended Jews and was hounded to death, does so at the urging of his mother (Barbara Hershey), who is tired of paying for it.

Thomas dons the brown-shirt uniform to keep his buddy company, Arvid is outraged that either of them think they can fake embracing fascism by day and dig that beat by night, and all tragically discover the realities of life under Hitler.

The insidious Hitler Youth indoctrination takes root in Thomas and almost in Peter, who eventually comes to realize that his new associates are evil. So he cries a lot and dances harder.

First-time feature director Thomas Carter hasn't yet developed the political sophistication or the artistic imagination that could - maybe - give such tricky material resonance. As is, he can barely make dramatic sense out of Feldman's repetitious, thematically cross-wired script.

Swing Kids:

Showing at Towers Mall. Rated PG-13 for violence.

by CNB