TAP ROOTS Perth Sunday Times 10 SEP 2000,
Bootmen stars Adam Garcia as Sean, a good-looking lad who hates the idea of spending the rest of his life working at the steel mill. If you haven't heard of Garcia before, he's about to take the world by storm. He blew away West End audiences last year with his performance as Tony Manero in Saturday Night Fever and will soon be seen in super producer Jerry Bruckheimer's Coyote Ugly.
Sean decides the only way he's ever going to get out of Newcastle is by creating his own tap troupe. He comes up with the idea after being kicked off a show in Sydney and then finding his girlfriend, Linda (Sophie Lee), in bed with his older brother, Mitchell (Sam Worthington).
Sean gathers up his old mates and comes up with the idea of combining tap show with the sounds of the steel works. And, of course, he gets the girl.

KICK UP your heels Courier Mail, SAT 09 SEP 2000,
Fox have also produced Dein Perry's Bootmen (releasing October 5) inspired by his own experience as a Newcastle steel worker. The Tap Dog creator's movie tells the story of two brothers (played by Adam Garcia and Sam Worthington). Worthington plays Mitchell, who dreams of running his own transport business (and steals cars to sell for parts to help realise his dream), and Garcia (currently enjoying a big success in America in Coyote Ugly) starts his own all-male tap dance company.
There are Full Monty echoes with the movie's industrial background, and there's also a serious romantic angle, with Sophie Lee as the girl caught in a tug-of-love between the two brothers. Some of the dancers featured in the film previously worked as members of the Tap Dog phenomenon, with Perry's stage show having been acclaimed around the world.
Perry's trademark lightning-fast tap dancing proved something of a challenge for director of photography Steve Mason. ``Dein himself was dancing in one scene and he danced so fast that you couldn't actually see his feet move,'' says Mason. Unlike the old musicals, Perry says Bootmen does have a message for 21st century audiences. ``The message is optimism. No matter who you are, if you have talent and work very hard, you, too, have a chance to succeed. I hope audiences will be inspired by that,'' he says.

Extracts from New York Times -September 10, 2000
In two fall films, "Billy Elliot" and "Bootmen," an English coal miner and an Australian steelworker come to terms with sons who follow the passion in their feet. Dancing not only reunites father and son but exhilaratingly redefines masculinity
The Bootman, a 20-something steelworker, not only organizes his own dance troupe but rescues his community with a benefit when the local plant is shut down. As in Stephen Daldry's "Billy Elliot," which opens Oct. 13, and Dein Perry's "Bootmen," arriving Oct. 6, dance has the power to change and connect lives.
The steelworking brothers in "Bootmen" have an even harder-headed father. But these brothers are not interested in escaping into an orderly classical world. Their dancing is gritty, low and hard - like the steelworks. The boots beat out the rhythm of frustration and fear in a technological society that endangers their survival. It is not until one of the sons dies in a low-life tangle that the father recognizes the power and urgency of their tap dancing.
The Bootmen, who are based on the dance group Tap Dogs, become as popular and magnetic as visiting rock royalty: we see a stadium audience go into an almost soccer-crowd frenzy.