Striptease (1996)

Directed by Andrew Bergman. Starring Demi Moore, Armand Assante, Ving Rhames, Burt Reynolds, Robert Patrick, Paul Guilfoyle, Jerry Grayson, Robert Stanton, Stuart Pankin. [R]

In order to pay for legal fees in a custody battle for her daughter, divorced mom Demi Moore becomes a stripper at a Miami club called the Eager Beaver, where a corrupt, sex-and-booze-addicted Congressman (Reynolds) becomes obsessed with her, and she gets tied up in some shady business with him, his subordinates, the police, and more. Writer/director Andrew Bergman adapted this confused, tonally-distorted story from a satirical crime novel by Carl Hiaasen, and I think the movie version is supposed to be a comedy, but it’s not funny. I also think it’s supposed to be titillating, but the “striptease” stuff isn’t sexy. Reynolds plays it fatuous as the leering politician who loves his Vaseline (“It’s down in my boots, I can feel it squishing between my toes”), while Ving Rhames goes deadpan as a bouncer, Robert Patrick goes over-the-top as Moore’s sleazy ex-husband, and Moore herself plays it so straight and flat and (weirdly) noble, it’s as if she’s not in on the grift. She’s also far too dour to be a plucky heroine, so, really, nothing about her characterization works at all. Since it was never going to work as loopy satire, why didn’t Bergman take the time to actually look into the world of exotic dancing and give Moore’s well-endowed co-workers anything to work with (they’re all one-dimensional bimbo-types and get, at most, a few lines of dialogue apiece)? Maybe because it’s easier to dream up caricatures than find the truth underneath glitter and silicone. Michael Jordan makes a very brief cameo appearance as himself, a patron of the Eager Beaver. Demi’s onscreen daughter is played by her real-life daughter, Rumer Willis.

29/100