Despite Stallone’s best intentions, the plot centers more on Parton’s character, a country singer in New York City named Jake Ferris. She plays The Rhinestone, a club with a notoriously mean crowd. Her career is trapped in the hands of her boss Fred Unger (Ron Leibman), who puts his “F.U.” initials on his robes and his doors, cause, you know, that’s funny. When he refuses to release her from a lengthy contract, she gets him to commit to a bet where she regains control of her career if she can take a random person on the street and turn him into a “Rhinestone Cowboy” (since the movie is based on the Larry Weiss song). She winds up with Stallone’s Nick Martinelli, the worst taxi driver in New York, and that’s saying something. “WHOA! BONZAI!” he screams at some absurdly stereotypical Japanese customers he drops off at Rhinestone. Jake trains Nick - who refers to himself as “Me, Nick” constantly - by bringing him home to Tennessee and encouraging him to wear tight pants and cowboy hats and stuff like that.

I guess the SHE’S ALL THAT (Y’ALL) plot is pretty substantial, given the entire film is based on a three minute song. Personally, if I’ve got to see a movie based on a song, I’d have rather seen one based on “Drunkenstein” which Stallone worbles before a surprisingly receptive crowd once his training in the ways of all thing country & western has begun.

Parton had better parts in better movies, but she manages to maintains most of her dignity throughout, though her ample cleavage is often so prominent it would make Russ Meyer blush. It’s Stallone who really, truly, utterly embarrasses himself, and this is the guy who made a movie about arm wrestling for the custody of his child. His character is supposed to be sort of goofy, but Stallone is so far over the top (PUN ALERT) he’s unintentionally funny almost every time he opens his mouth. His finest moment is when he has his obligatory bust up with Jake and yells at her for considering sleeping with Fred, whom he refers to as “THE goo-ROO of doo-DOO!” Of course, the man is about as close as you can come to tone-deafness without actually crossing the line into it. To answer your likely question of “What does a country song sung by Sylvester Stallone sound like?” I would respond “Exactly what you’d expect it to sound like.”