COYOTE UGLY
Rated PG-13 - Running Time: 1:41 - Released 8/4/00
It's not often that a movie comes along as willingly empty of
substance as Coyote Ugly. Written by Gina Wendkos and directed
by freshman David McNally, it is bereft of style, character, or
anything remotely resembling an interesting story, stuffed instead
with boobs, butts, and a stomach-turning love story tacked uncomfortably
onto the back end of its tight designer jeans.
Coyote Ugly stars the young, fresh-faced Julia Roberts
lookalike Piper Perabo, recently seen cavorting with cartoon wildlife
in The Adventures
Of Rocky And Bullwinkle, as a small town girl who moves
to New York City to become a songwriter, but, lacking an agent
or the intestinal fortitude to audition for anybody, is forced
to work at a sexist, exploitative bar where she rakes in the dough
from a roomful of drooling, lecherous drunks dying to get in her
pants. I'm not sure, in a city where actual strip bars and prostitutes
are readily available, why a joint like Coyote Ugly would
survive. Filled with pretty girls who dance but don't strip, regularly
set the bar on fire, and dump ice on the customers, it would seem
a fiscally risky venture at best; still, it appears to be the
most popular watering hole in the Big Apple.
Against the wishes of her widowed father (John Goodman) and
best friend (Melanie Lynskey), Violet (Perabo) leaves the comfort
of South Amboy, New Jersey, to seek her fortune. Right away she
meets a nice, unattached young man (Adam Garcia) who spends the
rest of the movie romancing her, and gets a job at the aforementioned
Ugly bar. It's almost unnecessary to mention her boss (Maria Bello)
and co-workers (including Izabella Miko and supermodel Tyra Banks),
because they really offer very little to the film other than butt-wiggling
and whooping it up. But the love story between Perabo and Garcia
is also not really worth mentioning, either, because it is so
perfunctory it fails to cause the slightest emotional ripple.
Not only is there no chemistry between these two, but the supposed
"conflict" that arises between them is laughably trivial
— stupid, really. So let's go to the obligatory my-father-doesn't-understand-me
subplot. Nope, nothing there either. Goodman, good old reliable
Goodman, who's showing up in all the best and worst films these
days with reckless abandon, actually seems embarrassed
to be seen here, and I don't blame him. His characterization as
the toll booth attendant (you heard me), so dependent on his daughter
that he doesn't even know how to wash his own socks, is way below
anything I've ever seen him in. And the scene where he tearfully
reveals the "big secret" about Violet's mother is nothing
short of vomit-provoking, an after-school-special moment if there
ever was one. I didn't know the man was capable of anything this
bad.
Frankly, there's just no story here. And for those eager young lads who watched the trailer and thought there would at least be some decent T&A...sorry, fellas. Try Hollow Man. *½