In SWING KIDS, Disney's odd melodrama about teenage jazz fans in Nazi Germany, resistance to fascism comes off as a fight for the right to party. Despite energetic dance sequences and appealing leads, the film falls prey to pat psychologizing and some stunningly puerile notions of
history.
In 1939, a vigorous teen subculture flourishes in Hamburg under the noses of the Gestapo: long-haired, zoot-suited hipsters--the Swing Kids--dance to big band jazz, openly rejecting the "Aryan" culture espoused by their archenemies, the HJ (Hitler Jugend, i.e., the Nazi Youth).
Peter (Robert Sean Leonard) has lost his father to Gestapo torturers but transcends h...
Released:
1993
Rated:
PG-13
Length:
112 mins