Coyote Ugly (2000)

2.5 out of 4

Starring: Piper Perabo, Maria Bello, Adam Garcia, Izabella Miko, Bridget Moynahan, John Goodman, Melanie Lynskey, Tyra Banks

Director: David McNally

Time: 100 mins

Ah, yes. Another summery, flashy, glossy Jerry Bruckheimer film with little substance. That just about sums up Coyote Ugly, the latest from the producer of slick visual stimuli like Armaggedon and Gone in Sixty Seconds. This time, however, rather than an action flick peopled by cool actors like Nic Cage and Will Smith, Bruckheimer has gone back to his Flashdance days. Coyote Ugly purports to be a story about a young girl looking to strike it rich in New York City, but somehow intermingled into the mix is a rowdy bar where sexy female bartenders cavort and dance on the bar-top while wearing skimpy clothing before serving beers and shots. What does the bar have to do with the main story? Nothing much, really, except: 1. its name is Coyote Ugly; and 2. it allows a group of pretty women to wear skimpy clothing and dance sexily on bar-tops. If you're into this sort of thing, you'll find Coyote Ugly has a lot of, uh...shall we say...visual appeal.

Violet Sanford (Piper Perabo) is a young woman living in New Jersey who dreams of making it big with her songwriting skills across the pond in New York. Against the wishes of her father William (John Goodman), Violet moves to Manhattan, but finds that success is much harder to attain than she first thought. She befriends Kevin O'Donnell (Adam Garcia), an Australian who she thinks is a music manager but later finds out is working as a kitchen hand in a local club. Soon after, she auditions for a job at Coyote Ugly, a bar where bartenders like the boss, Lil (Maria Bello), and fellow "coyotes" Cammie (Izabella Miko), Rachel (Bridget Moynahan), and Zoe (Tyra Banks) strut, dance, and serve drinks in tight outfits. After a nervous first couple of nights, Violet is given a permanent job, and things begin to look rosy. Her relationship with Kevin hits a rock when his efforts to help her promote her songwriting clash with her duties at the bar. Meanwhile, her dad finds out where she's working and is not too happy, to say the least. How will Violet juggle her responsibilities and ambitions while satisfying the people she loves?

There's not much originality in Coyote Ugly. It's just another variation of the small-town-person-conquering-big-city plot one has seen before in films like The Secret Of My Success (1987). Where Coyote Ugly differs from those earlier films is the blatant addition of sex appeal. As we all know, sex sells, and the girls in Coyote Ugly do their best to live up to that claim. Perabo, Bello, Moynahan, Miko, and Banks are all beautiful and flash comely smiles. And they all wear skimpy clothing. Not that there's anything wrong with this, as the trailers clearly target this aspect of the film. But what does it have to do with the story?

There are a couple of touches of humour which leavens the moderately pedestrian drama. The dramatic moments include a fallout between Violet and her dad, and a romantic spat between Violet and Kevin. Nothing too serious, however, as everything is smoothed over quite quickly. There's also a storyline where resident angry coyote Rachel (she goes to anger-management classes) shows her jealousy of newcomer Violet. But again, it's nothing that can't be resolved with a good song-and-dance routine (right, Mr Bruckheimer?). Some Bruckheimer films, like the excellent submarine pic Crimson Tide, have the gumption to tackle the tough issues, but Coyote Ugly is not one of them.

All the girls seem to have been employed because they're pretty and sexy and can dance in tight clothing. Perabo has a naive, appealing innocence, though as mentioned previously there's nothing too dramatic to test her acting skills. Bello, who was recently seen as a doctor on TV's ER, plays a tough-headed business lady (she seems to be married to her bar) as well as motherly figure to the girls. The rest of the coyotes don't have well-developed characters; after all, what need is there for such contrivances when all they're required to do is to look sexy most of the time? Australian actor Adam Garcia acquits himself well with his charming portrayal of an Australian (at least he didn't have to play the stereotypical beer-guzzling, foul-mouthed Aussie as seen in the recent Vertical Limit), while Goodman is also adequate as Perabo's father.

There's not much more to say about Coyote Ugly. It is your typical, middle-of-the-road effort from the Bruckheimer stable. First-time helmer David McNally does well to spare us from the dizzying 1-second-per-edit style associated with frequent Bruckheimer collaborator Michael Bay, but Coyote Ugly is still just a piece of glossy eye candy.

(c) Joe Wong (1 January 2001)