I do not believe the male lead can dance. Almost all of the time he's "dancing", what actually happens is that he stays in one spot, barely moving, while his partner dances. Usually the camera shoots him from the waist up, or so far away you can't see his face. Jerry Springer could do this.
I think you have to understand the style of West Coast Swing. I haven't studied this type of dance but it seems to me that the upper body is rather still for this type of dance while the concentration is at the feet. I know WCS does not use 'mirror' dancing so the male is not going to be doing the same thing as the female. In fact, it seems that the male role is more about moving out of hte way as the female travels across the floor.
Tom Malloy is actually good at WCS. According to his IMDB page: [he was] trained in West Coast Swing by Robert Royston, the 5 Time U.S. Open Champion. Tom is now one of the top West Coast Swing dancers on the East Coast.
I've loved dancing all my life, but never studied it, so I am speaking from a viewers point of view. Comparing Jake and Jessica with the other dancers in the movie, and especially during the competition, they couldn't dance very well.
shareI liked the movie and thought Tom Mallory was cute, but a dancer he is not. He made some moves which are basic to anyone who feels the music, (except for the lifts), but he really could not dance, and actually she wasn't very good either.
shareIf you read about him, he actually is a dancer and a winning one at that. I was surprised to learn this as well.
shareThey're suppose to be dancing West Coast Swing - that's what his character is suppose to be a champion of. In West Coast Swing (the very basics of it), the male dances on a straight line back and forth - taking small steps, while the lady does all the moves and performs 'passes' around him. It's really more to accentuate and show off the lady and her moves. So yeah, the man doesn't move much. Also, it's suppose to be a smooth dance as compared to East Coast Swing, which is more of a hopping movement, or jittering up and down, so to speak.
The dance was intially developed in the early days of movie making so that the dancers would remain in the camera's field of view; so actors danced back and forth on a line within that field of frame.
In my opinion, this was a typical silly Hollywood movie with bad acting and over-dancing. But hey, it's Hollywood. For a good basic dance movie, I really enjoyed the original Japanese flick SHALL WE DANCE - which Hollywood made a weak remake later starring Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez.