Footloose Review

Ahh, Footloose. Most people are familiar with this one. The story of a rebel (Kevin Bacon) that turns a whole town upside down with his dancing. Chrystal loves this movie and has seen it countless times, so I finally decided to watch it and write a review about what I thought. First of all, the soundtrack of this movie is very well selected and really does get you in a toe-tapping mood. The acting is well done and involves a pastor who believes that dancing always accompanies sinning against God. He pretty much teaches against all dancing, smoking, and drinking even though he (the pastor) has no relationship with his rebellious daughter who sneaks around doing the very things he preaches against. Kevin Bacon arrives on the scene as the city boy who is out of place in a conservative country town. He smokes, drinks, and most importantly - he dances and believes that these things shouldn't be banned in the sleepy little town. Of course he comes against some resistance from the town board (including the pastor) but impressively uses some Scriptures to justify that there is a time for dancing (check out Ecclesiastes 3:4 if you don't believe me). The choreography in this movie is superb and the moral is a good one too - Don't have standards just for the sake of having them if you have no Scripture to back them up. In this case, the pastor was dogmatic about no dancing, yet he was ignoring the fact that his daughter desperately wanted to grow closer to him and he made no effort to allow that to happen. The pastor reminded me of the pharisees that Jesus talked about in Matthew 23:23 when He said

"You [the pharisees] give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former."

The moral of this movie is a good one. Rules without relationship = rebellion. If you are going to have high standards (which can be a good thing), make sure these come from a heart relationship with Jesus Christ, otherwise you'll be out of balance.