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Speaking of bare midriffs, the blow-stuff-up mogul who hung his star on such noisome, incendiary fare as Armageddon and The Rock has decided to risk exposing a sensitive side, sort of. If you don’t go in truly believing that the producer whose latest hit was Gone in Sixty Seconds would be capable of using women any differently from the way he uses cars or pyrotechnic devices, i.e. sleek things scattered around a movie to go off with a bang when a scene needs to be livened up, then Coyote Ugly could be called sensitive. In fact, if your were to watch it after seeing the other new releases this week, by the time the end credits ran you might think you’d sat through Terms of Endearment.
Piper Perabo, who was last observed looking equally sheepish in The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, plays aptly named Violet, a New Jersey waitress who moves to NYC seeking fame as a songwriter despite overpowering stage fright. After a burglar swipes her savings, hunger and her kindergarten-teacher looks land her a tryout at the establishment of the film’s title, a sweaty, raucous, claustrophobic place that’s a bit like Hooters except they don’t serve wings or have any tables (the name comes from that old joke about waking up in bed wrapped around the sleeping figure of someone so unattractive that, like an animal in a trap, you’d rather gnaw off your own limb than miss an opportunity to escape). For that matter, there’s no food or furniture of any kind. Actually, all it offers is a few runway-gorgeous (what’d you expect? the title isn’t Coyote Stupid), tough-talking, hands-off women who serve straight shots, flirt, and dance on the bar when it’s not on fire. And sometimes even when it is -- Jerry Bruckheimer, remember?
Violet, whose shrinking, blinking naivete is over-awed at first take, soon makes herself a valuable player, and begins overcoming her reticence, by singing karaoke over the 70s/80s-heavy jukebox mix, which is kind of odd since her LeAnn Rimes-provided singing voice sounds appropriately thin but a whole lot more Nashville than Jersey. Meanwhile she’s fallen in love with an equally good-looking Australian guy and alienated her protective, tollbooth-attendant father (played by John Goodman and therefore quite a standout in this otherwise svelte crowd). She’s found money and love, so the only remaining challenge besides reconciling with her father is, will she ever get up on stage and sing her own songs?
As silly as it sounds, Coyote Ugly is fairly watchable, and I’m not just saying that because, as one character notes, “the average male is walking around with a toddler in his pants.” Although the plot is sappy, and Perabo appears to have been cast only because she has a certain Julia Roberts big-teeth quality -- not necessarily a criticism -- there’s surprisingly little egregious girlskin on display. First-time director David McNally uses the skills honed in shooting things like that Budweiser Super Bowl commercial with the lobster a few years ago to keep things light and fast-paced, while a script by Gina Wendkos, who wrote the cute but little-seen Jersey Girl, forestalls too much frat-boy behavior. And Goodman keeps everything grounded with an understated performance that provides a healthy dollop of humor; test audiences enjoyed his character so much that he was called back to shoot additional scenes and a new ending.
The biggest problem with Coyote Ugly is the music. Tinny little LeAnn Rimes fits in okay with the lame, uninspired wheeze passed off as Violet’s musical genius. But the karaoke stuff – INXS, Blondie, Foreigner, etc. -- would have sounded a lot better voiced by somebody more ballsy, such as Garbage singer Shirley Manson. You know, somebody who wouldn’t have been caught dead doing a movie like this. C+
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