Inside the Circle

Rating NR Formats DVD Genre documentary Starring Josh Ayers, Omar Davila, Romeo Navarro Directed by Marcy Garriott Publisher Cinema Libre Studio

When movies are released in theaters that reflect on break dancing, such as You Got Served, the trailers tend to be bad enough to keep away from viewing.  Documentary filmmaker Marcy Garriott attempts to show the real side of inner city dance battles with Inside the Circle, which offers a glimpse but shows too much dancing and not enough heart.

The main setup of this documentary is a strong one, well beyond the mindless feature films plots.  It follows the paths of Josh Ayers and Omar Davila, two friends on opposing dance teams.  Josh is in constant struggle with the law, and having been dealt a lousy hand in life, only wants to make something of himself but is never given the chance to.  Omar quickly rises in popularity to the point where he a worldwide underground phenomenon, yet is caught in between following his dreams and trying to make his father happy.  It is obvious from the start that these youngsters have some growing up to do, as Josh is angry all the time and Omar is a cocky little jerk to opposing dancers.  While I wanted to smack Omar in the head to learn some humility, Josh’s anger seemed justified.  He never knew his father, and there seemed to be something strange about his mother, as if she didn’t have time to give Josh the emotional support he needed.  It was especially heartbreaking to see Josh find a job that he loved in Orlando, yet have his probation from an incident years ago deny him from moving there.  Seeing the boys grow up and achieve what they want from life is satisfying, and demonstrates a well-deserved happy ending.

The style of the documentary is done in “reality TV” format, where everybody featured gets time to talk directly to the camera in private.  This is helpful in relaying necessary information about the histories of Omar and Josh, but it’s a double-edged sword because it puts a cage on letting the events tell the story.  The story behind the documentary would easily be stronger if events could speak for themselves.  But if that were the case, it would take up more screen time.  However, it may be a good thing, because the dancing scenes could easily be cut down.

The eye candy of the film is in the dance battles.  These guys are amazing to watch, as they flip around with enough arm strength to do the moves on a pommel horse.  Garriott seems to be in love with the dancing so much that half of the film is devoted to it.  After the first four battles, that was good enough for me to get the point.  It never stopped, and about a dozen or more battles were shown.  After a while, the same thing gets boring and I found myself anxious to find out more about the lives of Josh and Omar.

Another weak link was that of break dancing manager Romeo Navarro.  He was introduced before Josh and Omar in order to give an overview about the world break dancing.  He randomly popped in from time to time, but his presence was useless.  His only addition to the film was to promote his dancing scene.  Promotion isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but he didn’t deserve to have so much screen time.  It wasn’t like he was a mentor or trainer to Josh or Omar.  The screen time of Romeo deserved to go to the close friends and family of Josh and Omar, as that was where the true drama occurred.

I can’t decide what Marcy Garriott’s intention of this film was.  The basic theme of following your dreams has a strong presence, but at times comes off as a flashy advertisement for break dancing tournaments.  Garriott couldn’t balance the scenes, so everything became uneven.  Certain scenes reflect true human drama, while others are nothing more than dance battles shown over and over.  And over.  If this film actually did what it preached and found a rhythm and flow, then it would’ve kept my interest the entire way through.