DIRECTOR
David McNally
SCREENWRITER
Gina Wendkos
PRODUCER
Jerry Bruckheimer
CINEMATOGRAPHER
Amir M. Mokri
MUSIC
Trevor Horn
EDITOR
William Goldenberg
CAST
Piper Perabo (Violet)
Maria Bello (Lil)
Izabella Miko (Cammie)
Tyra Banks (Zoe)
Bridget Moynihan (Rachel)
John Goodman (Violet's Dad)
Adam Garcia (Kevin)
Melanie Lynskey (Gloria)
Ellen Cleghorne (Receptionist)
Bud Cort (Romero)
MPAA rating: PG-13
Running
time: 100m
U.S. release: August 4, 2000
Video availability: VHS - DVD
Official website
|
Critics
are often too harsh on movies like Coyote Ugly, a harmless
enough trifle. There are worse ways to spend 94 minutes on a
humid August afternoon than sitting in an air-conditioned theater
watching several attractive women writhe and giggle their way
through a mechanical confection. Some have said it's not bad
enough, and that's certainly true; it's not so-bad-it's-good,
and it's not so-good-it's-surprising, either. I equate it to
last year's Deep
Blue Sea, another late-summer cheese-fest that did its
job for me exactly as long as it lasted, but not beyond that.
Some of the disappointment centers on the revelation that Coyote
Ugly is not particularly sleazy (yes, it's rated PG-13, which
means the women can wear wet, clinging, tight tops that almost
render full nudity redundant anyway, but they keep those clothes
on). It's actually kind of sweet and goofy, and part of the reason
is Piper Perabo, a likable, frisky presence with a warm smile
-- a Denise Richards who can act. Perabo plays the heroine, Violet
Sanford, who moves from New Jersey to New York in pursuit of
songwriting dreams; she just wants to write songs, though,
because even though she has a lovely voice, stage fright smacks
her down whenever she actually has someone looking at
her while she sings her own compositions.
New York smacks her down, too; Violet bumps against the city's
freezing disinterest in struggling young musicians (one music-publishing
receptionist is played by Ellen Cleghorne, too little seen lately,
who brings such snap to her rejection of Violet that she seems
to speak with the voice of New York). So Violet stumbles across
a job -- at Coyote Ugly, the notorious East Village joint where
the sultry barkeeps dance on the bar when they're not setting
it on fire (and sometimes when they are). Bar owner Lil
(Maria Bello in an entertainingly direct performance) sizes up
Violet and hires her because she "looks like a kindergarten
teacher." Violet soon takes her place among the other coyotes
-- friendly blond Cammie (Izabella Miko), bitchy Rachel (Bridget
Moynahan) -- and is rechristened "Jersey," or "Jersey
Nun" (don't ask).
The script is credited to Gina Wendkos, who also wrote a 1992
Jami Gertz vehicle called Jersey Girl; write what you
know, I guess. What Wendkos knows is mostly borrowed plot elements:
the disapproving dad (John Goodman invests his role with far
more comic dignity than was probably on the page), the sensitive
boyfriend Kevin (Adam Garcia, who has an easy rapport with Perabo),
the back-home best friend (Melanie Lynskey, once again bringing
soft warmth to whatever she does), the hard-ass boss with a well-hidden
heart of gold. Still, the cast fleshes out the clichés
exuberantly and with little irony, which is something of a relief.
Wendkos gets sole writing credit, but among this broth's many
uncredited cooks is Kevin Smith (Chasing
Amy, Dogma),
a Jersey boy. (Note: Non-comic-book geeks can skip to the next
paragraph.) Since Smith is a well-known comic-book fan (and comic-book
writer) as well as an indie-film god, I'd assumed that a recurring
plot device involving a rare issue of Amazing Spider-Man
was his doing. But eagle-eyed reader Nolan Reese alerted me to
Smith's own comments on his contribution, which turned out to
be not much -- mostly cosmetic touches were retained from Smith's
draft, and he emphasized that, contrary to the inevitable assumptions,
the whole Spider-Man thing wasn't his doing. The inaccurate
value cited for the comic book -- "It's worth a thousand
dollars," Kevin proudly tells Violet; it's actually worth
about $150 -- should've been my tip-off that Smith didn't write
it; he would've known better. Anyway, Smith has said that not
much of his personality made it to final cut, and by and large
he's right. (If he really wanted to leave his pawprint, he would've
had the comic be from his Oni Press imprint, maybe a Jay and
Silent Bob issue.)
Coyote Ugly has a jostling good humor about it. If you
find Violet likable, you won't mind the ridiculous fairy-tale
ending; "You won't be validated," a sneering receptionist
had told Violet earlier, but she gets validated, and how. The
producer, Jerry Bruckheimer, gets some validation, too; after
a long run of terrible movies, produced solo or with his late
partner Don Simpson, he has made two films this summer I actually
kinda liked -- this one and Gone
in 60 Seconds. Both are essentially remakes of past Bruckheimer
hits -- Coyote Ugly shares more than a little with Flashdance
-- but somehow they're better remakes. I'd rather see
Bruckheimer remake his own bad movies well than have him remake
good movies badly. |
