Coyote Ugly (2000)

Directed by David McNally. Starring Piper Perabo, Maria Bello, Adam Garcia, John Goodman, Izabella Miko, Melanie Lynskey, Bridget Moynahan, Tyra Banks, Del Pentecost. [PG-13]

Predictable pap with long legs and no brain cells, sending perky but stage-frightened Jersey girl Perabo to the big city to chase her dreams of becoming a songwriter. After predictably failing at that, she becomes a bartender at the titular late-night joint, spending as much time dancing on the countertop with other babes than serving drinks—being based on an actual East Village bar doesn’t change the fact that it’s the most absurd demonstration of tending bar on the silver screen since Tom Cruise and Bryan Brown wasted everyone’s time with bottle-juggling shenanigans in Cocktail. Co-producer Jerry Bruckheimer takes a break from over-the-top action blockbusters to rip off one of his earliest hits (Flashdance) and can’t even clear that low bar; it’s such underwritten, formulaic fluff, neither the heroine nor her well-endowed co-workers are remotely appealing as individuals. Since there’s so little to do at the bar besides drink, ogle, and get humiliated, Perabo’s life gets crowded with lame sub-plots like a romance with charmless Aussie Garcia and various gentle confrontations/crises with her well-meaning dad (Goodman, better than the film deserves), but if you’re at all concerned that maybe the protagonist’s dreams won’t come true, take comfort in the fact that singer LeAnn Rimes cameos as herself at the end, and you know she wasn’t gonna show up to deliver bad news. (She shouldn’t have shown up at all considering it’s a bar and she’s only seventeen, but, hey, fantasy, right?) Gina Wendkos received lone screenwriting credit, but among the several people who contributed unbilled rewrites are Kevin Smith and Carrie Fisher.

24/100