Movie Review: You Got Served

In the classic musical West Side Story, you have two New York gangs meeting for a "rumble" that is choreographed like a dance. Flash forward to 2004 and producers figured "why not just let the dance be the battle?" and nobody gets hurt. Street dance battles had their roots in break dancing and have grown into full-fledged competitions with "crews" who meet on the streets or in underground clubs to literally out-dance each other. Sounds way safer and more fun than busting a cap to me.

In You Got Served, two Los Angeles-based best friends Elgin and David (played by real life bros Marques Houston of IMX and Omari Grandberry of B2K) want to raise some money to help family and start their own hip hop club or...something. When not working for mobster Emerald (Michael "Bear" Taliferro) and trying to quit, they shoot hoops and bust dance moves with their crew of street dancers hoping to win big money in a dance-off.

The guys are challenged by an obnoxious rival Orange County white boy crew. Each group will pony up $5,000... winner take all. There is a problem raising the $5,000 but, eventually the two crews face off in an underground warehouse club where benevolent d.j./host Mr. Rad (Steve Harvey) tells the crews to play nice or be ejected. When one of Elgin and David's best dancers defects to the other crew over money problems and then teaches some of his crews best moves to the Orange County jerks, the bad boys win and announce to Elgin's crew.."you got served".

A final bigtime dance off will give an appearance in a Lil' Kim video and 50 thou to the winners. All the crews wanna go for the gold. Further problems ensue when David starts dating Elgin's baby sister (Jennifer Freeman) who gets dating advice from more experienced galpal Beautifull (Meagan Good) and the best friends split up..resulting in two new crews.. Of course a reunion is in order for a final big money win.

I just find something funny about two gangs getting in each other's faces, spouting out some really rough we're gonna bust your a** challenges then...trying to dance each other to death but hey, in You Got Served, the dancing is pretty hot and well-shot although I found an MTV-jay who gave a chatty play by play (step by step?) commentary over the dancing to be very annoying. The sub-plot, involving young love and street violence, has been done many times before and is handled pretty superficially here.

These guys are wearing some really expensive duds for not hardly workin'. David never wears the same glam thug outfit twice and Steve Harvey seems to be making a career in films out of playing the older, sage advice-giving "why can't we all just get along" dude. Marques Houston has had far more acting experience than his younger bro Omari and it shows. Jennifer Freeman is charming and cute and Meagan Goode is sexy and convincing as a very slightly older woman giving dating advice. I really enjoyed Esther Scott as Elgin's grandma who gripes about all her physical ailments then says "I ain't one to complain", very funny.

If you are entertained by gymnastics, hot dancing and creative choreography, pulse-pounding super loud music and don't mind a predictable plot, you'll probably get an energetic kick out of You Got Served.

For some pretty tight dance moves, 3.5 out of 5 stars

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Lynn Barker is a Hollywood-based entertainment journalist and produced screenwriter.