Coyote Ugly (2000)

Elevator Pitch: Violet Sanford is a young singer/songwriter who moves from small town New Jersey to New York looking for fame. She finds it is an uphill struggle facing rejection from the outset, but gets the chance to take a job in the hedonist bar Coyote Ugly where the female staff dance provocatively on the bar counter, generating massive tips. She also more or less accidentally gets a boyfriend. But her father learns of her work, due to a photo of her in the local paper, and is ashamed of her and she loses her boyfriend because he sees a customer in the bar touch her and starts a fight. Can she rebuild her relationships and literally face the music due to her stage fright?

Content: There is implied sex but no nudity, but a lot of drinking and of course the dancing on the bar, some of it quite enjoyable but some extreme. A lot of water is sprayed about both on the girls and also on the mainly male drinkers in the bar. At one point the boyfriend, Kevin, has to do a strip to earn money to save Violet’s job. Violet argues with her father, who towards the end is run down and hospitalised. Violet and Kevin gradually get together and then separate, before getting together again. Violet practices her songs on the rooftop of her tenement.

A View: I have never used the phrase “guilty pleasure” before, but this film might be one for me. Piper Perabo and Adam Garcia were personable young people and the over the top performances in the bar were mostly fun. I particularly liked the line dancing and I really enjoyed the music, Violet’s songs written by LeAnn Rimes but a lot of old style rock as well. The critics complained about the predictable plot but after the labyrinthine crap I have watched recently it was a relief. So if you like classic rock maybe give it a go.

Additional Info: The music from the film spawned several CDs one of them achieving more than 4,000,000 sales.