NY student of movies about troubled teenagers in high school will be ticking off the boxes as cliché after cliché is offered up by Stomp The Yard.

The formula is simple: angry youth from the wrong side of the tracks moves to a more affluent area, clashes with the locals, only to earn their respect and prove himself by the time THE END appears on screen. Yet sometimes - and this is one of them - all the familiar ingredients come together and it works.

First, you have to understand a form of dance known as "stepping". This African- American tradition has evolved from the centuries-old African Boot Dance which "combines precise dance steps with chants and percussive hand and foot movements".

Champion street dancer DJ (Short) quits Los Angeles, after a gang fight turns nasty and his little brother is killed, to live with his uncle (Lennix) and aunt (Pettiford) in Atlanta. He's enrolled at the prestigious, historically black Truth University, where stepping is at the core of long-time rivalry between two campus fraternities.

The obligatory romance finds him attracted to April (Good) who just so happens to be the girlfriend of Grant (Henson), also DJ's main rival on the dancefloor. The two are locked in a deadly battle which proves noisier and bloodier than any Strictly Come Dancing final.

Director Sylvian White, an award-winning music video and commercial director, does all that's required in putting a modern spin on an old story. Despite myself, I was carried along by the whole formulaic thing and there's no denying that the dance sequences are vividly executed and performed by the young cast.

Stars: Columbus Short, Meagan Good, Ne-Yo, Darrin Henson, Brian White, Laz Alonso, Valarie Pettiford, Harry J Lennix, Christ Brown, Jermaine Williams
Rating: 3 Stars