COYOTE UGLY

by Peg Aloi

The joint: yes, it's a real bar in Manhattan (faux saloon, beer and whiskey, country jukebox). Yes, the tough-but-sexy bartenders really gyrate on the bar, outdrink the customers, and dress like extras from Showgirls in shitkickers. Yes, they douse you with ice if you order pussy drinks like martinis or mudslides. Yes, it will be a pathetic tourist attraction by the time you get your ass there.

The movie: spunky, slender nymphets pour cold water on one another and clog-dance to "Devil Went Down to Georgia." It's a romantic comedy/coming-of-age/local-girl-makes-good kinda movie, entertaining and sexy in a teasing, clothes-on kinda way. By way of a plot to justify this offbeat watering hole's existence, we get ingenue Violet Sanford (Piper Perabo) and her dream of leaving New Joisey pizza slinging behind to write songs in the Big Apple. She starts out a naive-but-gutsy songwriter in the Tori-Shawn-Sarah mold, but the whole thing turns into a Britney Spears video that is painful to see and hear. Despite efforts by script doctors like Carrie Fisher and Kevin Smith (Clerks/Chasing Amy), a soundtrack by Yes/Buggles frontman Trevor Horn, and appealing performances from Melanie Lynskey (Heavenly Creatures) and yummy Aussie Adam Garcia, David McNally's film suffers from a glut of feel-good clichés and stock funky-Manhattan-at-dusk footage. A shot or two of Jack or Johnny beforehand might help. At Cinema World, Framingham, Gardner, the Hoyt Dayville, the Hoyt Westborough, Leominster, Marlboro, the Solomon Pond Hoyt, and the Worcester North Showcase.