Striptease

Plot synopsis:
Former FBI secretary Erin Grant (Demi Moore), loses custody of her young daughter Angela (Rumer Willis) to her ex-husband Darrell (Robert Patrick), who is a criminal and cost Erin her job. To afford an appeal to get her daughter back, Erin becomes a stripper at the Eager Beaver, a Miami strip club. A Congressman named David Dilbeck (Burt Reynolds) visits the club and immediately begins to adore Erin. Aware of Dilbeck's embarrassing indulgences, another Eager Beaver patron approaches Erin with a plan to manipulate the congressman to settle the custody battle and help her get Angela back. However, Dilbeck has powerful business connections who want to ensure he remains in office. Consequently, those who can embarrass him in an election are murdered. Meanwhile, Erin retrieves her daughter from Darrell's negligent care.
Dilbeck's personal interest in Erin persists, and she is invited to perform privately for him. He asks her to become his lover and later his wife, despite his staff's concerns that she knows too much. A debate occurs as to whether to kill Erin or simply keep her quiet by threatening to take away her daughter. However, Erin and a police officer Al Garcia (Armand Assante) begin to suspect the congressman's guilt in the murders, and Erin concocts a plan to bring the congressman to justice. She tricks him into confessing on tape, and he is soon after arrested. Thus, Erin regains full custody of Angela, gets her job in the FBI back, and retires from stripping, and Darrell returns to prison after he is convicted of his crimes.

Tags: comedy, neo noir, murder, stupid, cult, flashback, satire

Review:
Brilliant characters, an intriguing storyline, hilarious incidents, sex, violence, the works...I gave the movie a 5 because Robert Patrick and Burt Reynolds were absolutely hysterical and on-point (I'm sure THEY actually READ the book), but aside from those two gems this movie was a disgrace.What happened to the plot?!?
The story was enthralling and thoroughly enjoyable when I read the book, the movie (breasts considered) not so much..There's a gratuitous 3 minute topless dancing scene, followed by 3 minutes of Demi and the little girl crying and being superdramatic.
...the flop that deserves six of its Razzies and the nomination for Worst Picture of the Decade?I think, "Striptease" (1996) directed by Andrew Bergman based on the book by Carl Hiaasen, is all of the above - a curious mixture of laughs, satire, absurdism, darkness, silliness, and over-seriousness.
The latter comes from Demi Moore who plays Erin Grant, the FBI secretary - losing her job and the custody over her daughter to no good small time crook wheelchairs stealing husband (Robert Patrick looking and acting like a stoned, redneck version of Gary Oldman) and who takes a job as an exotic dancer in the local club "Eager Beaver" to earn money for her court appeal.
Erin also makes friends with a club bouncer, Shad (Ving Rhames) who is perhaps the best thing in the movie - clever, sharp, sarcastic, with the great sense of humor.
The summary line above came from my wife after seeing Andrew Bergman take a really funny book by Carl Hiaasen and turn it into a "Sincere Sally Field Gutsy Mom Works As A Stripper Even Though It Means Shame And Disgust Because It's For Her *Daughter*!!!" movie.Ving Rhames and Burt Reynolds deliver deft, wonderful performances that are completely sunk by Demi Moore's Jawline Of Grim Determination.
The movie has to add a scene where the daughter sees the mother dancing (oh horrors!) and the mother has to explain her Sordid Living to the Innocent Babe.Also, in the book, Erin is a top dancer who doesn't have the biggest boobs in the room, but who gets the best tips because she actually knows how to dance.
All tits and no dancing talent.Demi Moore was apparently determined to keep this movie from being seen as a comedy.
Burt Reynolds gives the performance of his career, Ving Rhames as good as ever, and there's Robert Patrick playing a loser so with out morals he steals wheelchairs for a living.
Demi Moore, Burt Reynolds and especially Ving Rhames bring the characters to life, and then some!
I haven't read the book, so maybe that's why I can judge the movie on its own merits.Ving Rhames is terrific-- honestly, has he ever had a clunker of a performance?
If you're anything like me, you probably came across this movie with no one in mind other than Demi Moore, but ended up also being entertained by the likes of Burt Reynolds, Robert Patrick and Ving Rhames.
Demi Moore plays a single mother who is an exotic dancer and at the beginning of the film she loses custody of her daughter to her sleazy husband, who seems to make things really difficult for her.
Burt Reynolds plays the congressman David Dilbeck who becomes infatuated with Moore's character, Erin Grant and he does so seeming quite clownish and somewhat cartoonish at times but never stops being light-hearted in every scene he's in.
Demi Moore delivers, in the sense that you feel her character is divided between earning money by dancing and feeling guilty for having been seen dancing by her daughter which she conveys the discomfort in one particular scene.
And if you came to watch a movie called Striptease starring Demi Moore and hoped to catch a glimpse of her stripping and her other-wordly half-naked body, you will most definitely not be disappointed!
(Robert Patrick is the drug-stealing ex-husband who gains custody of the child.) Ving Rhames is a bodyguard and Burt Reynolds has a nice co-star role as a sleazy political candidate.
Shabby comedy-drama from Carl Hiaasen's novel has ex-FBI clerk Demi Moore turning to stripping in order to pay off her legal debts; seems she's in a fight to retrieve her child from her disreputable ex, yet the film doesn't see stripping as disreputable and therefore Moore is the good guy in the plot.
Director Andrew Bergman may have helmed this project blindfolded, how else to explain the sketchily-drawn characters, the ridiculous strip-club sequences or a dire sub-plot involving Congressman Burt Reynolds?
Many critical reviews are totally off the mark as they judge this movie as something it is not: it is not an erotic movie, a comedy, or a beauty contest, it is a political thriller - and an excellent one!In this genre, there are few films that can compare in suspense and memorable scenes and characters.
Demi Moore plays a mother who works in a striptease bar to raise money for a trial to get her daughter back from her criminal ex-husband.
Also, Demi Moore's acting performance, while not bad, is not on on a par with, for instance, Burt Reynold's.Speaking of Burt Reynolds: he is what makes this movie special.
I thought Demi was a decent choice and also applauded the casting of Robert Patrick as her good-for-nothing ex, and Ving Rhames as a bodyguard at the club.However the entire thing ended up being a mess, and I can only hope I can erase the image of Burt Reynolds in his boxers, smothered with petroleum jelly from head to toe, from my mind.Read the book!!.
Of course, the acting, direction and script are all bad, but with Striptease they are so consistently awful throughout the film that it really defies belief.And don't even mention Demi making her character such a mindnumbingly clichéd "doing it for the kids" mom!
I'm a huge Annie Lennox fan and Demi Moore was great dancing to her songs, she's a great actress and brought a touch of class to the stripper scene!
Demi Moore is outstanding as a newcomer to the "Eager Beaver", a raunchy strip club where she does a more than adequate job of raising pulses whileVing Rhames watches over her as self-appointed guardian(he's great as usual), and Burt Reynolds has never been funnier as a U.S.Congressman that would make Bill Clinton proud!
But Hiaasen's book is eminently filmable: lots of plot, eccentric characters, blacker than black humor and very imaginative violence.Instead of filming *that,* this was a vehicle for the sexy-as-day-old-bread Demi Moore.
There are occasional good lines from the novel(like when Ving Rhames(the only good actor here, along with Demi Moore's daughter Rumer Willis) telling two security guards that Meryl Streep used to strip under the name Chesty LeFrance), and even a couple of original ones(like Moore refusing to dance with cream corn because she doesn't want it to go up her "hoo-ha"), but the motivations, the characters, and the story are all hacked away; (2) that Andrew Bergman is responsible for this mess.
Typical is the scene where Burt Reynolds character, who we know is a lech, delivers a sermon on "family values."  Did Bergman think he was actually breaking new ground here?
What's in the movie isn't; (3) That Demi Moore keeps appearing in novel adaptations when she apparently doesn't understand what made the source work.
Demi Moore looked awesome at times; too tough-looking at other times.Robert Patrick and Burt Reynolds played over-the-top characters who got a bit annoying after awhile.
They are unrelenting.The only likable character in the movie is played by Armand Assante, although the film makes you root for Moore in her custody case.I understand the book is much.
Not only did EVERYBODY in this movie turn in a spectacularly lame performance, but I think somebody forgot to tell Demi that it was supposed to be funny.
I remember watching this and thinking, "Wow, if Demi Moore was the father in this, she wouldn't have had to go through all this crap," which I think and hope the movie was pointing out.
With all the skills she had and all that she could offer any company or agency, but has no feasible choice but to work in a strip joint to earn the money for attorney's fees to get her daughter back and yet be a good mom and keep her self respect, dignity and deal with the stigma that goes with being one of "them" meaning the label that society has marked on women who do this for a variety of reasons, mostly because of their kids.
No one can ever say that Demi Moore is bad at anything; Ving Rhames always puts on a great performance; Robert Patrick, a excellent and gifted actor, Frances Fisher is a great talent.
Burt Reynolds is the only one I don't care for both professionally and personally, but that is not to say that he was not good in her heyday.I believe that what people had a problem with is the subject matter because strippers are not suppose to have their kids, but addicts, drunks and convicts should, especially if the woman is a stripper.The character of "Erin" even said that she would have to find another job, a "respectable" job.
Andrew Bergman directed this film that stars Demi Moore as a recently divorced young mother who has lost custody of her daughter Angela(played by Rumer Willis) to her thief ex-husband Darrel(played by Robert Patrick) so she takes a job as a stripper in a nightclub, and is a big hit, though must dodge the unwanted attentions of a lecherous Senator(played by Burt Reynolds) who is involved with the murder of one of her admirers that was blackmailing him, and that a police Lt.(played by Armand Assante) is investigating.
Despite Demi's undeniable beauty and skill in her dance/strip routine, this film is dreadful, both poorly directed and written, with (mostly) unappealing and obnoxious characters, and utterly unfunny comedy.
I really enjoyed Striptease, it was such a good comedy, mixed with drama and thriller, but mostly comedy.And look at the cast involved, I mean Burt Reynolds was just classic in this film, I think it is one of his best roles ever, he was a crack up!!
I don't care what any body else say's,  This film was fantastic,  anybody who says otherwiz doesent know good movies when they see one.
Reynolds is in the "hilarious satire" that I'm told the book is and, in his scenes he is actually pretty good and if the whole film had been this movie then he would have been perfect.
Playing it down the middle without being as cr*p as Moore, support is actually OK from Rhames, Assante, Patrick, Guilfoyle and a few others but it is a matter of them making the best of a bad situation rather than doing well.Overall this is a poor film that missing the potential it had by failing to bring off the sharp satire that aspects of it suggest it should have been.
This film begins with a woman named "Erin Grant" (Demi Moore) arguing for custody of her young daughter before a judge.
On the other side of the equation, I liked the performances of Ving Rhames (as the bouncer named "Shad") and the aforementioned Demi Moore who I thought was absolutely sensational.
Fighting for custody of her daughter, against her white trash alcoholic ex, (Patrick in one of his best performances) our hot Demi, such eye candy in black lingerie, goes back to what she does best, stripping, so she can earn enough to get herself a good lawyer and have permanent custody of her angel.
Ving Rhames is especially good in this movie but so are Armand Assante, Robert Patrick and Demi Moore.
Demi learned to dance like an exotic dancer for this film and after just having a baby at the time, she looks great.And even with an indifferent script, Moore holds it all together so as not to allow these annoyances to ruin this otherwise enjoyable comedy/drama.The story was hugely predictable, and the acting was pretty bad, but this movie was really funny.
Overall, a pretty good movie with Moore's "chair dance" being one of the most sensual acts I have seen in a long time!
Striptease falls into that category; it's not that eventful, but provides an enjoyable diversion with the help of a cast that's clearly having fun, and a reliably solid lead performance from the always fantastic Demi Moore.
I'm one of the latter and since I've read the book I can't help but see this as an attack on political corruption and environmental folly.After losing her job as an office clerk for the FBI due to her ex-husbands recent criminal proclivities, Erin Grant (Demi Moore) resorts to stripping to support herself and her daughter as well as the high legal fees of a custody battle with said ex.
Maybe it was just the TV Movie version I saw, but the film seems to concentrate unnecessarily much on the sexy dancing, and then cut off before seeing anything, which seemed a bit strange.Ving Rhames manages to shine whatever material he's given to work on, and here he comes off as a near-comic genius.
Demi Moore's performance is notable only for the dancing scenes, but what is particularly surprising about the movie is the comedy.
I know a lot of people especially critics didn't like this movie,personally i loved this movie and the only reason is demi and she just killed it i mean she looks amazing from the poster itself and yeah it is really good time pass for me whenever i get bored i watch this few scenes of this movie and yes those 10 stars are only for demi,i wish i was born in that era.
Yeah, Demi Moore's performance as a stripper is a fascinating part in this movie for which she worked hard, but the movie is more deep than erotic scenes.
The movie takes the books plot and makes it a bit more realistic and thoughtful by saying: stripper is not always equal with hooker, many times those girls are in desperate need of money, but keep their morals with them, being just dancers ; politicians sometimes are not what they appear to be, even if they are representing religious groups and as a overall lesson, don't label someone before you understand their story.
It's hard to put this movie in a genre, it has satire (dark comedy) , dramatic story (drama), some great action scenes with suspense (action and thriller), but I think that the idea was to tackle hard topics to reveal the reality and that's what I like about it.
The ravishing Demi Moore plays a young mother that turns to stripping to earn enough money to go to court and get back the custody of her daughter.
Burt Reynolds plays a repugnant Congressman with his libido set on HYPER and has his heart and other parts of his anatomy set on capturing the lovely Ms. Moore.The Stripping scenes were at best mediocre, and they were, by far, the best part of the film.
This is probably one of the worst written scripts of the 90s, however the terrible thing about this film is that some really good actors are wasted in it (Ving Rhames, Robert Patrick, Armand Assante).The storyline is absurd, too...a mother strips to get money.
I mean, she's not horrible, but she's no Meryl Streep either.You'd think the nudity would at least be an entertaining aspect of the film, but it's really not...the only good thing about this movie is Burt Reynolds, who is absolutely hilarious in his role as a perverted Congressman.
Yes, Demi Moore looks good when shes stripping but like I said she is not good when she has to act in a dramatic scene.
Based on Carl Hiaasen's satirical novel, Striptease tells the story of Erin (Demi Moore), who has just gotten a divorce from Darrell (Robert Patrick), the sleazy ex-con she foolishly married.
After I watched the movie, I thought like "Where is the sense in it?" Ving Rhames is my favorite character, some kind of funny, but Reynolds?
Anyway, visually really "touching", but the dialogues and the story just kills any serious possibility to watch this movie...5 points, because of demi moore's "dancing" skills....
And without that incredible humor, the movie didn't have a chance.I did enjoy the perfectly cast Ving Rhames as Shad and Burt Reynolds breathed life into the bumbling congressman.
Burt Reynolds look 100 years old in the movie, but he is still a great actor..
I am a big fan of Demi Moore movies.
This is certainly not the best movie in the world, but if I looked like Demi Moore, my life would be set.
I think you can't blame Demi Moore for making this film and taking the 10.000.000 dollars she was paid; in fact I'm sure she was the first one to know she was entering a terrible piece of cinema."Striptease" is a really poor product whatever its genre is (thriller, crime, action, comedy).
Otherwise I liked Aramand Assante, Demi Moore and Ving Rhames.
Burt Reynolds and Ving Rhames are great, both roles are so shallow, simple and stereotypical but still quite funny.Demi Moore is just such a horrible actress, she just sucks in every meaning of the word.
The movie is a bland comedy about a mother (Moore) fighting for custody rights of her daughter.
Demi makes a good stripper and Ving Rhames is amusing as her body guard.
This may not be any good, but it isn't incompetent either, and that makes things even worse.At the end of the day, unless you have a Demi Moore fetish, you will remember nothing about this movie.
There are a lot of good actors in this movie such as Demi Moore, Burt Reynolds, Armand Assante, Robert Patrick and Ving Rhames.
Demi Moore may be OK, but STRIPTEASE is a complete misfire and wastes some good people (Reynolds, Armand Assante, Ving Rhames).