Lowering the Bar
Coyote Ugly wastes our time with a hackneyed formula and glib
moralizing.
Okay,
so there are these beautiful ladies in tight clothes, right? And -- get this --
they serve alcohol while dancing suggestively! Sound cool? How about we make a
movie about them? The premise oughta be enough to
draw in the guys, and we'll call it "female empowerment" or something
so their dates'll go along. Really,
what more do you need in a film?
In the case of Coyote Ugly,
someone apparently thought the answer was "an especially formulaic plot
that pushes the titular bar into the background while moralistically wagging
its finger at the sensuality of it all." It's sad, really, because there
probably could have been a decent story to tell that actually focused on the bar,
based upon a real establishment of the same name in
But whatever. The first half of the movie is actually a
reasonably entertaining trifle, with Violet and her Pepto-Bismol-chugging
best friend Gloria (Melanie Lynskey, the girl from Heavenly
Creatures who isn't Kate Winslet) packing up in
preparation for the trip to the big city as Dad (John Goodman, doing his
damnedest to save the film) fusses and grumbles about his little girl leaving
him all alone. Once Violet gets to the city, she tries shopping around her demo
tape, only to find that (gasp) talent agency receptionists are rude! (They all
seem to have been patterned on David Spade.) She seems to have finally struck
gold when she encounters handsome Australian club owner Kevin (Adam Garcia),
but it turns out to be an elaborate practical joke when the man is revealed to
be a lowly cook. He does, however, turn out to be the Perfect Man, with his
self-deprecating sense of humor, smooth dance moves, shapely body, and...comic book collection? (Only in a screenwriter's mind could
this happen)
Yes, believe it or not, he's in
debt to some shady characters all because he's desperate to own a copy of the
issue of Spider-Man that featured the debut of the Punisher. While
fending off Kevin's advances, and desperately seeking cash, Violet happens to
be in a diner when she overhears three gorgeous beauties counting their money.
No sooner has one of the beauties (Tyra Banks)
announced that she's leaving the bar where they work, than Violet loudly
overhears the expository phrase "She's gonna be impossible to
replace!" Soon Violet's a "Coyote" (the bar's name comes from an
expression for a particularly unattractive guy one might wake up next to with a
hangover), and we get what we paid for: girls dancing atop the counter to
classic rock while pouring water on each other. Unfortunately, none of these
sequences was shot in the actual Coyote Ugly, which may explain why the
location seems like a generic movie bar rather than a place that would inspire
urban legends.
And then the artificial postmidpoint crises occur. Dad and Kevin both disapprove of
Violet shaking her thing. A major character faces a life-threatening situation.
And some grievous misunderstandings occur, only to be easily resolved in sitcomlike fashion. If you make it this far through the
film, don't walk out, as Goodman gets some good physical comedy bits toward the
end, but you might be better advised to avoid paying admission altogether, and
wait for the TV edit. It's PG-13, so you won't miss much: None of the women
ever wears any less than the tight outfits you see on the poster. Coyote
Ugly thereby is fully in keeping with the rule of Jerry
Bruckheimer-produced films (assuming one likes Bruckheimer to begin with, which
most critics don't and many of the public do): The R-rated ones are fun (The
Rock, every film Tony Scott has ever made) while the PG-13 ones are not (Armageddon,
Gone in 60 Seconds). Sorry, Jerry, but you just can't do a big, loud,
testosterone flick and hold back on the sex and violence. Strip all those juicy
distractions away, and there's nothing left but formula. As a matter of fact,
this film is as much of a departure from Bruckheimer's usual style as we're
likely to ever see from him: No one dies, the editing runs at a leisurely pace,
and tinted filters aren't gratuitously obvious. The director, newcomer David
McNally, was presumably hired for his previous work on commercials and rock
videos (like Michael Bay and Simon West before him), but apparently someone
forgot to tell Bruckheimer that McNally's most prominent videos were for Celine Dion. Quick -- name a
single memorable Celine Dion
video (and the one from Titanic doesn't count).
Most offensive of all is the
subtle moralizing; the idea that Violet can be empowered by working at Coyote
Ugly, yet must rise above such debauchery in order to be truly happy.
Bruckheimer has never been a prude: Is this his attempt to placate feminists?
As pro-wrestler The Rock would say, know your role, Jerry: You make guy movies.
And there's nothing wrong with that. You'll never be Nora Ephron,
and you shouldn't even think of going there to begin with. After all, you don't
see her messing around with pyrotechnics. As for Perabo,
she certainly looks great. But after a while, her face becomes tedious, with
its range of expressions from bemused grin to ultrawide
bemused grin all the way through to trembling-through-tears bemused grin. (On a
side note, why do so many actors maintain a smiling mouth while crying
onscreen? Does anyone you know do this?) Garcia is a better bet for
breakthrough star, channeling more charisma than that other handsome young
Aussie of the summer, Heath Ledger. Goodman is better than the rest of the cast
put together. And with the exception of Maria Bello
as the hardened bar owner, none of the Coyote girls makes a strong impression. Tyra Banks stands out by being the only one who isn't
white, but that's about it. Given the prices of movie tickets, popcorn, and
sodas, you might as well take your money to a strip club instead. The ladies
may not serve you alcohol, but they won't try to distract you with a plot, and
it's almost a lock that the music will be better.