STARS: ***
DIRECTOR: David McNally
PRINCIPLE CAST:
Piper Perabo
Adam Garcia
Maria Bello
John Goodman
Bridget Moynahan
Izabella Miko
Tyra Banks
TAGLINE: Tonight they're calling all the shots.
At first glance, Coyote Ugly is obviously the illegitimate love child of Cocktail and Flashdance, but surprisingly it also borrows a bit of DNA from Jerry Maguire. Allow me to explain. Amidst the bar dancing women with hopes and dreams, there is the ultimate combination of two types of films that no one had thought to mix� before know. As Jerry Maguire combined the female romantic-comedy and the male sports film, Coyote Ugly manages to blend the �chick-flick� with the �scantily-clad-chick flick.�
In this movie, Piper Perabo plays Violet, a struggling songwriter who moves from a small New Jersey town to the Big Apple with hopes of making it big. Of course, when she arrives, she doesn�t find it nearly as easy as it sounds. She gets utterly humiliated by the man who will soon be her boyfriend, her apartment is robbed of everything except, to her advantage, her musical instruments, and everyone she brings her demo tape to cannot even listen to it. And who said show business was hard?
Eventually, Violet snags an audition to be a Coyote. She can�t handle the surroundings at first, but gradually adapts to her surroundings and climes onto the bar with the rest of her pack. All looks well as she blends with the girls and gets a boyfriend, but she still has problems with her song-writing career. You see, she can�t get signed without an agent and she can�t get an agent without publicity. Unfortunately, Violet has a bit of stage fright� which prevents her from singing her own songs, but not from pouring water on herself on a bar and grabbing the microphone and karaoke-ing along with the jukebox. We should have guessed something was going to go wrong with her plan when she hesitantly got up to sing a bit of �I Will Survive� before leaving town. Oh, well! It doesn�t really matter. She inevitably sings her song, gets her man, and a record deal.
Okay, usually a movie that sounds this clich� and predictable is not to my taste, but I just could not help but enjoy this movie. I don�t really know why, but I did. I may sound like a bit of a pig, but perhaps it was the bar-dancing girls that were a wonderful form of eye-candy that kept my attention throughout the movie. It could have been the fact that I am also an aspiring entertainer and could get myself lost in Violet�s world. Or maybe it was Violet herself, Piper Perabo.
The young Miss Perabo is an utter joy to watch. She is utterly cute and has that wonderful girl-next-door innocence that makes her ever the more appealing. Like Julia Roberts before her, she has great comic timing and can give insight into her emotions with just the bat of an eyelash or a wide smile. Although, I find Piper Perabo more enjoyable than Julia Roberts and I see many great films and maybe even an Academy Award in her bright future. Also, her singing voice is beautiful� although, that might not have been HER singing voice, but then that just adds to her lip-synching skills. In any case, her performance is wonderful.
On another note, I see a bright future for the director of this film. Well, at least I hope he has a bright future. The dancing sequences are as beautiful as their dancers and, though I�ve not been there myself yet, I believe he manages to capture the pure essence of New York City. Although, it would have been nice to actually have seen some Chinese people in Violet�s Chinatown apartment complex. But that�s just a minor noting with no real gripe behind it.
Adding to this films allure is the appropriate soundtrack. Watching the movie, I was having a Flashdance moment, picturing people walking right out of the theater and into the local Sam Goody to purchase the soundtrack. However, I would have liked to have seen whoever did Violet�s singing voice work, be it Piper Perabo herself or not, appear on the soundtrack along with the Leann Rimes version of each of her songs. Oh well, it�s too late to bitch about it now, not that it would have helped in the first place.
Overall, this is a fine movie that holds appeal for people of both genders. A plot for every dreamer, marvelous dance numbers that are very well done, an incredibly befitting soundtrack, and unbelievably beautiful people left and right help make this fine summer fare. After all, it�s nice to see a movie sometimes that�s not trying to do anything special except entertain. Though that in itself is becoming a feat in Hollywood.
