SHOWGIRLS begins with a simple title card and a girl hitchhiking her way to Las Vegas. Her name is Nomi (Elizabeth Berkley), and within twenty seconds of being picked up she has pulled a switchblade on the driver and is screaming at him. Nomi, you see, is kind of emotionally unbalanced. After Nomi’s suitcase is stolen, Molly (Gina Abrams) finds her in a parking lot, cursing and beating the hell out of Molly’s car. Understandably concerned, Molly tries to calm Nomi down, who promptly vomits and runs out into oncoming traffic. So naturally, Molly asks Nomi to become her roommate. Would you trust this switchblade pulling, tantrum throwing, upchuck heaving maniac to sleep on your sofa? I didn’t think so.

We pick things up a few weeks later, and the film follows Nomi’s meteoric rise from stripper to topless Vegas showgirl to Queen of the Topless Vegas Showgirls and back again. All this despite the fact that Nomi dances like she’s having an epileptic seizure, and moves with the grace of a rabid dog. The movie is obsessed with dancing, both in action and in conception, and when people aren’t dancing they’re talking about dancing, specifically how good Nomi is at it. Unfortunately, the audience can see that Nomi is a terrible dancer, but everyone in the film seems totally oblivious to that fact. “She can dance, can’t she?” one observer muses to another. (You want to yell, ”She can?”)

When an aspiring dancer named James (Glenn Plummer) spots her in a club, he picks her up. After she compliments his dancing, he insults hers. “Then what am I doing?” she barks. (”You don’t want to know!”) Eventually, James decides Nomi is good, tracks her down, and tells her “You’ve got more natural talent when you dance than anybody I’ve ever seen!” (”James, go out more! She makes Clay Aiken look like Savion Glover!”) Nomi isn’t interested in James’ help and tells him “I don’t need anybody to teach me to dance!” (”Yeah, and I wear glasses because I think they make me look cool"). After she’s been picked to audition for the show “Goddess” one of the men of the casino tells Nomi, “When I saw you dance, I thought ‘Yes!’” (”Yes what? Yes, that woman needs counseling? Yes, she is the worst dancer you’ve seen since Elaine on Seinfeld? Yes, you have no bananas today? WHAT?!?”). Not surprisingly, Nomi has sex in the same herky-jerky style and is complimented for that too. “You’re a fantastic f*ck!” one man raves. (”She is? Are you sure? Did we just see the same thing?”) Yes, Nomi is enthusiastic about dancing and sex, but enthusiasm does not equal skill. I’m enthusiastic about baseball but that doesn’t mean the Montreal Expos are going to let me play second base. Okay, well the Expos might, but a real professional team wouldn’t.

SHOWGIRLS is misguided and profoundly, deeply, and utterly stupid. I don’t know if Eszterhas or Verhoeven is to blame for this stuff, so let’s take them both to task. This is a movie where someone falls on stage and gets injured, and the show’s physical trainer tests the woman’s leg to see where it hurts. She gets to her knee and the dancer recoils in pain. “It’s her knee!” the trainer says as if she’s discovered the cure for cancer. In another scene, a woman shows Nomi an engagement ring and then happily heads off to the bar to get a drink. Her fiancee then tells Nomi, “We’re getting married.” Boy, it’s a good thing it doesn’t rain in Vegas, these jokers would have been staring at the sky the whole movie going “Look! It’s raining!”

The movie is so unintentionally funny this review could go on forever. All I can say is (as long as you are above the legal age required to see it) go rent this movie. You’ll howl at the terror of the dancing-routines-are-hard scene. You’ll gasp at the heartbreak and anguish of the your-nipples-aren’t-erect-enough-put-ice-on-them scene. You’ll cheer at the tenderness of the I-just-got-out-of-jail-give-me-a-Ring-Pop scene. You’ll shrug at the oddness of the children-in-the-dressing-room-offended-by-foul-language-but-not-by-rampant-nudity scene. You’ll squirm at the I’m-on-my-period-feel-free-to-check-for-yourself-if-you-don’t-believe-me scene. And the hilarity is only compounded by the version shown on basic cable television where digital bras are added on to people to keep the nudity down. In that version, women take off their bras to reveal they were wearing another identical bra underneath! Genius!