Coyote Ugly [Region 1] [US Import] [NTSC] - Region 1 DVD

It all boils down to a 12-certificate teenage magazine romance, set in what amounts to a nudie bar where there's no actual nudity. Both the men in the heroine's life seriously question whether writhing suggestively for drunken lechers is an empowering activity for an independent girl, but since that's more or less the film's strongest visual effect, the script has to come down on the side of the girls--if not the customers. The supporting babes--Russian blonde Cammie (Izabella Miko), ferocious brunette Rachel (Bridget Moynahan) and upwardly-mobile Zoe (Tyra Banks)--gyrate and model Spice Girls cast-off gear, but make less of an impression than Melanie Lynskey (the "other one" from Heavenly Creatures) as the devoted, slightly dumpy best friend back home. Like most Jerry Bruckheimer products, it's slickly put-together, at once exciting and predictable, cut like a commercial or a pop promo, directed by a non-entity (David McNally), fantastical yet blue-collar "real" and self-destructs in the mind after viewing. --Kim Newman