STRIPTEASE
A film review by David N. Butterworth
Copyright 1996 David N. Butterworth/The Summer Pennsylvanian
Directed by Andrew Bergman Rating: *1/2 (Maltin scale)
A film review by David N. Butterworth Copyright 1996 David N. Butterworth/The Summer Pennsylvanian
Demi Moore is proud of her body and, in her latest movie STRIPTEASE, it shows.
She has every right to be proud--this thirty-three-year-old mother of three obviously works hard to stay in shape. But there's little of her in STRIPTEASE that we haven't seen before, and only hardcore Demi-lovers and voyeurs are likely to savor this crummy piece of entertainment. It is sleazy and humiliating while half-heartedly attempting to present strippers in a kinder light.
Moore "burns up the screen" as Erin Grant, a former FBI clerk who is forced to work as an exotic dancer (read: stripper) in order to raise money to appeal a custody decision that placed her seven-year-old daughter Angela (Moore's real-life daughter Rumer Willis) with her small-time crook of a husband (played by Robert Patrick).
Surely Erin could have found another job as an executive secretary. Or flipped burgers at McDonalds. Or even applied for a loan! But no. Exotic dancing (read: stripping) it has to be. The money is much better--novelist Carl Hiaasen, on whose book the film is based, claims that there are waiting lists for these jobs--but it seems a peculiar career choice for a single mom trying to impress a conservative judge.
The "action" takes place at the Eager Beaver, a topless bar (read: strip joint) in Fort Lauderdale where Erin bumps and grinds the night away in a variety of easy-off outfits. One night, an intoxicated Congressman David Dilbeck (Burt Reynolds, unashamedly gleeful in a degrading role) staggers onto the stage where Erin is being admired a little too closely by one of the customers. The senator swings a champagne bottle, a flashbulb goes off, and all of a sudden you've got more peripheral plot than you care to deal with, with blackmail, murder and sugar cane politics fleshing out the unfolding domestic drama. And you just came to see Demi nekkid!
After last year's disastrous NC-17 SHOWGIRLS, the advance press for STRIPTEASE made damaging comparisons. Believing that American audiences were not ready for another sleaze-o-rama, the publicity machine for STRIPTEASE switched gears, suddenly promoting the film as a wacky comedy. The film does have it's amusing moments, often involving Shad, the nightspot's beefy bouncer (played by the appealing Ving Rhames), or Reynolds' over-sexed Congressman Dilbeck who, with his bleached white rug of hair, is confused for "the guy from F-TROOP" and "the guy from THE PRICE IS RIGHT" by characters in the film.
These moments of humor aside, STRIPTEASE remains a choppy, schizophrenic mess. The tone jackknifes from tear-jerking mommy melodrama to Ace Ventura-style slapstick and back again. Similarly, the "dignity of stripping" issue is clouded and confused. On the one hand the filmmakers want us to believe that stripping is a wholesome occupation, yet their central character is clearly bitter about having to do this kind of work--she wants to lead a "normal, fully-dressed life." The deepest observation about the objectification of women is a scene in which Erin tells the Eager Beaver's owner that he needs to get rid of the napkins which bear the club's logo, a sassy cartoon rodent swinging around a pole. "It's degrading to women and to beavers," she tells him. The endless scenes of Moore going through her paces are more embarrassing than degrading, but none compare to a titillating topless routine with a hair dryer-it's somewhere between Annie Oakley and Annie Lennox.
Unlike her character Erin, Demi Moore has no reservations about stripping for money ($12.5 million in this case) or having her daughter witness the spectacle. Moore may be proud of her stretch marks, but the top-heavy STRIPTEASE gets a double-D for effort.
-- David N. Butterworth
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