MAD ABOUT MAMBO - USA Films
Keri Russell, the Golden Globe Award-winning star of the popular
WB Network
series "Felicity," steps into her first leading role in
a feature film with
MAD ABOUT MAMBO, a new romantic comedy that celebrates following
your heart -- while staying fast on your feet.
Up-and-coming Irish screenwriter John Forte makes his feature
film
directorial debut, from his original screenplay, with MAD ABOUT
MAMBO.
In the upper-class part of Belfast, 18-year-old Collegiates
Private School
student Lucy McLoughlin (Keri Russell) yearns to prove her worth
to her
entrepreneur father Sid (Brian Cox), and to herself. Lucy lives
to dance and
dances to win: specifically, the Regional Latin Dance Finals. Her
dance
partner is her possessive boyfriend, Oliver Parr (Theo Fraser
Steele) --who
is also captain of the Collegiates soccer team. Rich upbringing,
athlete
boyfriend...what else could a young girl possibly need? Maybe
someone to
show her different steps in life. Not far from Lucy's part of
town, yet
worlds apart, is St. Joseph's, a boys' school in working-class
West Belfast.
There, 18-year-old Danny Mitchell (William Ash) is the most eager
player on
the school's soccer team. Soccer (known as "football"
abroad) is Danny's
passion. His dream is to play professionally, for Belfast United.
To be more
like the newly imported Brazilian star player, Carlos Rega, and
to improve
his own game, Danny sets out to get rhythm. How? By learning to
dance, Latin
style: Samba! Rumba! Mambo!
So, Danny enrolls at a local dance studio, where his sights
alight on a new
goal: getting to know Lucy. With Oliver around, Danny is edged
out of
playing his way into Lucy's heart. But he sees a chance to dance
his way
into her heart when Oliver is injured during a game. Lucy
reluctantly takes
Danny on as her new partner, insisting that he keep pace with
her, both on
and off the dance floor. To help Danny realize his dreams,
family, friends,
and faculty rally round in unexpected (and often unorthodox)
support.
Danny's friend Rudi tells him, "She is your biggest game
ever." That she is.
Practice just might make perfect for Danny, on both the playing
field
(keeping his eye on the ball) and the dance floor (watching his
steps with
Lucy).
A PolyGram Filmed Entertainment presentation in association with
Phoenix
Pictures of a First City Features production in association with
Plurabelle
Films, MAD ABOUT MAMBO is executive-produced by Gabriel Byrne and
Martin
Bruce-Clayton. The producer is David Kelly. The writer and
director is John
Forte.