Lambada

Year releasted: 1990

by Nathan Rabin
August 22nd, 2001

As anyone who lived through it undoubtedly remembers, 1990 was the Year Of The Lambada, when America surrendered helplessly to the sizzling "forbidden dance" that combined the illicit thrill of public dry-humping with the social acceptability of dancing. Released that year, Lambada explores the hypnotic pull of this Brazilian-born sensation through the uplifting, socially conscious tale of a strapping Latino hunk (J. Eddie Peck) with a double life. By day, he's a mild-mannered math teacher at a prestigious Beverly Hills high school lorded over by a persnickety G. Gordon Liddy lookalike. By night, he's a lambada-dancing hunk on a Harley who uses his good looks and knowledge of advanced mathematics to prepare a group of underachieving barrio dwellers for their G.E.D. exams. But Peck's double life runs into complications when a love-struck student (Melora Hardin), who admires his sinewy muscles more than his mastery of geometry, learns of his post-school hangout and begins fantasizing about him in ways that rarely involve calculus. Though Peck brusquely rejects the suspiciously mature-looking Hardin's double-entendre-laden advances, his wife nevertheless suspects that her husband has been grinding his sweaty, enflamed crotch into the nether regions of spandex-clad trollops for non-educational purposes. Meanwhile, at the club, he faces fierce opposition from swarthy switchblade enthusiast Shabba-Doo, who disdains Peck's activities until Peck teaches him how rudimentary knowledge of geometry can work wonders in a pool game. But no good deed goes unpunished, and after Hardin's jock boyfriend discovers Peck's after-school program, he leads his fellow jocks in a royal snobs-vs.-slobs rumble against Peck's nighttime students. Peck is fired, but his ardent disciples refuse to accept his termination, and at the behest of an open-minded superintendent, the principal agrees to give him his job back if his barrio kids can defeat the school's jock contingent in a film-capping academic competition. Thankfully, Shabba-Doo's visual-aid-enhanced knowledge of geometry comes in handy at precisely the right moment, and Peck's contingent wins, proving yet again that there's no obstacle a passionate teacher, committed students, and a tacky, short-lived dance craze can't overcome.