This was a real eye-opener! Even to old fogies like me, "Swing" is associated with being the music of our PARENTS. In "Swing Kids" we see it being very much the Rock'n'Roll of the 30's, with all the attendant counter-culture and generational rebellion elements that implies. When you add to that the setting of the film in the ascendant days of Nazism in Germany, the contrast is both amplified and rendered a much more serous business than just adolescent highjinks. I suppose when you strip away everything else, this is a "loss of innocence" movie, but that doesn't do justice to its meticulous production values, uniformly excellent acting, or tight scripting and direction. If the theme is old, the angle is new and very apropos: I was enrapt from beginning to end. (Look for Noah Wyle just before he became a medical student on ER!)

I do love swing music and love the music and artists from the era. So did my parents who were contemporary with it. But they had the good fortune to love it in the USA. It was a dangerous thing to like Benny Goodman, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and most of all Arthur Shawronsky who the authorities did know was Artie Shaw. But these squares were the Gestapo and Swing Kids is about the youth who loved American swing music at considerable cost.

Robert Sean Leonard, Christian Bale, Frank Whaley are three friends who are into American swing at a time in their country when such "jungle" music was Verboten. Swing Kids is the story about how all three were dealing with the growing strangulation of culture. One of the opening scenes takes place at a forbidden swing club where the kids are cutting a rug to Benny Goodman when word comes the authorities are near. Without a beat the band turns into a typical German Oompah band, the kind of music Herr Schicklgruber deemed acceptable to German youth.

Which was being swallowed up by the Hitler Youth and the social pressures to join are enormous. Something that we in this country cannot fathom. I'm not a big fan of the current Pope, but about the only thing I'll give Benedict XVI a pass on was joining the Hitler Youth. At a certain point the wiggle room got less and less.

Barbara Hershey as Leonard's mother gives a good performance as a woman keeping company with a Gestapo official for a little more comfort. Her husband and Leonard and David Tom's father had been arrested by the Gestapo a few years back and died as a result of their custody. The Gestapo official is played by an unbilled Kenneth Branagh who took no billing for his part deliberately.

Swing Kids has a timely lesson for today if some in federal authority will care to learn it. The fundamentalist Moslems just as the Nazis hate our decadent culture. The answer is keep importing it into places like Iran by the cargo ship load. Don't bomb them to death, just send them our music and films.

By the way our own fundamentalist Christians hated that music as they hate the music of today. Something about authoritarianism of whatever stripe just hates contemporary culture, whatever it is at the time.

Swing Kids is a valuable lesson about freedom of expression wrapped up in a good entertaining package.

It's the late 30's Hamburg, Germany. Peter Müller (Robert Sean Leonard),Arvid (Frank Whaley),and Thomas Berger (Christian Bale) are Swing Kids who dress differently with long hair and listen to American music. They speak American slang, swing dance and abstain from the Hitler Youth. Peter's mother Frau Müller (Barbara Hershey) is under pressure since his violinist father was killed after being imprisoned. Their friend Emil Lutz (Noah Wyle) switches to become a Nazi. Peter is arrested for stealing a radio and Gestapo officer Herr Knopp (Kenneth Branagh) pressures him to join the Hitler Youth. Thomas joins him. The disable Arvid refuses to compromise.

This is a sincere subject but the execution is lacking. The story lacks tension despite taking place in one of the most intense places in history. The movie could still be interesting but it decides to descend down a cheesy path. It also ends too soon. The big fear is the consequence of standing up against the oppression. It needs to show what happens after that. There are some solid young actors but the movie fails to live up to the serious subject matter.