COYOTE UGLY A film review by David N. Butterworth Copyright 2000 David N. Butterworth
*1/2 (out of ****)
Remember Tom Cruise and Brian Brown as rival bartenders juggling bottles of booze in "Cocktail"? Remember how stupid that looked? And remember the scantily-clad dancers of "Flashdance" getting doused with buckets of water? Well, "Coyote Ugly" does those films five better (or six better if you count John Goodman), since here we have Piper Perado, Maria Bello, Tyra Banks, Melanie Lynskey, and Izabella Miko doing the Absolut spinning and jiggling thing while pouring pitchers of Perrier all over their semi-naked torsos.
No, Goodman doesn't flip Jim Beams or wear anything particularly risqué in the film but he *does* get up on the bar and start gyrating with the rest of them. And the central character's love interest, played by an Australian actor named Adam Garcia, proves *he* can get up on that bar and start shimmying along with the rest of them too.
What seems to have started life as a Victoria's Secret photo shoot quickly deteriorates into one heck of an embarrassing movie. Violet (Perado) is a South Amboy hopeful who tries to make it big as a songwriter (not a welder) in New Jack City. As naïve as they come, she's fobbed off by music producer's receptionists by the scorn-ful and has her apartment robbed hours after touching down in Chinatown. And, like her mother before her, she gets stage fright whenever she tries to do the open mike night thing. When she sees a trio of babe-a-licious barkeeps thumbing through a stack of $20s in an all-night diner, Violet simply has to check out this bar they call Coyote Ugly. Lil (Bello), the no-nonsense owner, agrees to give Violet an audition but Violet blows it. Still, Lil gives Violet another chance. A riot breaks out (riots are the order of the day at 'Ugly's, since the staff are relentless in flaunting their sexual wares, flambeeing the bar, and soaking the patrons with diet Sprite--this is certifiable behavior in case I didn't mention it) but Violet successfully subdues the crowd by singing along to Blondie's "One Way or Another" on the jukebox. She's hired! And cured, since this little episode gives her the confidence to sing in an amateur talent contest where her Dad (Goodman), the junk food-eating, laundry-impaired toll collector, comes to see her and is as proud as punch. The End.
"Coyote Ugly." It's "Cocktail" meets "Flashdance." And boy is it ugly.
-- David N. Butterworth dnb@dca.net
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