Showgirls (1995)

Directed by Paul Verhoeven. Starring Elizabeth Berkley, Gina Gershon, Kyle MacLachlan, Gina Ravera, Glenn Plummer, Robert Davi, Alan Rachins, Michelle Johnston, Lin Tucci, Patrick Bristow, Dewey Weber, Rena Riffel, Greg Travis, William Shockley. [NC-17]

A true one-of-a-kind: a big-budget Hollywood NC-17 project sold to a wide audience (never tried before, and unlikely to ever be tried again), which became one of the most notorious film disasters of its time. Drifter Berkley hitchhikes her way to Vegas to become a dancer; starts out as a stripper but works her way up to a major casino’s topless dance revue, abused and mistreated by nearly everyone around her, but willing to stab backs (or shove a diva, karate kick a rapist, etc.) on the path to achieving her dreams. If Paul Verhoeven is to be believed, it was intended as a darkly sincere exposé of industry victimization, but succeeds only as outrageous camp, with indescribably awful acting and softcore skin shows and sex scenes that are as erotic as a dumpster full of dirty diapers. To be fair to the performers, though, they do manage to keep straight faces while talking about eating dog food (“I used to love Doggy Chow, too!”) or giving tips on how to get erect nipples; one dancer even takes her little kids backstage among a parade of naked women and complains when one of the ladies drops an f-bomb in their vicinity. Fans of inadvertent-howler flicks will probably have a blasst, but the ugly turns it takes in the final act turns all the cheese to mold in a hurry. It is a relief, however, to find a movie that sheds light on the scourge of monkey poop disasters in the stage show business. Script by maestro of “high-class” sleaze, Joe Eszterhas; he was paid handsomely for his hack work, and yet he has the cojones to judge the integrity of “whores” in showbiz.

35/100