Ugly Indeed

Rating: 4/10 (7 June 2003)

Jerry Bruckheimer movies are not intellectual endeavors; as we all know his clichéd scripting, 'wall of sound' soundtracks, and fast-cut action are mostly applied to slam-bang, kick-ass adventure movies. On the level of pure, mindless entertainment they usually work; they certainly make him and his team buckets of money. In "Coyote Ugly" Jerry takes his style and applies it to the romance genre. It doesn't work.
Yes, the production values are super slick, and the story, although unoriginal, holds promise. To digress, Violet (Piper Parabo), pizza joint songbird from New Jersey, pulls up stakes and heads for Manhattan to hit the big time. To pay her bills while launching her music career, she bartends at Coyote Ugly, a bar where the female bartenders dance, prance, and sing (all very suggestively) for a raucous male clientele.
It's all very predictable from the stage fright, the romantic misunderstandings, the trouble at the barwill her career get launched, love find its way, the bar remain open? Need you ask?
Since we've plowed this ground many times before it's the 'getting there' that should provide the entertainment. But thanks to an incredibly bad script, getting there is an unintended laugher. At this level the film works, but if you want to take it seriously, I'm sorry, it fails.