Based on a decent novel by Carl Hiaasen, Striptease is a dumbed-down-for-the-masses vehicle for Demi Moore, who one doesnt immediately associate with comedy, unless Indecent Proposal and The Scarlet Letter were supposed to be funny. She plays Erin Grant, a chiselled, surgically enhanced single mom who strips at The Eager Beaver (a club whose logo features a Jessica Rabbit lookalike sitting astride a pink rocket) and just wants to regain custody of her daughter from slimy Robert Patrick, who steals wheelchairs to make a quick buck. Even though she dances like Elizabeth Berkeley in Showgirls, Moore comes to the attention of Dave Dilbeck (Burt Reynolds), a Congressman with a weakness for titty bars and murdering his opponents, causing her to wonder aloud, How did I get so popular? (how, indeed?). When Dave invites her to dance for him on her yacht, she storms out after he confesses to stealing (and making love to) her laundry lint, and if that sounds lame and silly, its just the tip of the iceberg in a film that mistakes shameless mugging for comic timing and often substitutes airless drama for jokes. In fact, nobody gets an opportunity to raise any laughs, steal the show or even deliver a good line. Theres nothing to work with in writer/director Andrew Bergmans script and he seems to know it, lingering on the strip scenes longer than is strictly necessary. It ends with the villains trapped in a sugar mountain with their heads sticking out, looking like The Three Stooges. One of them says, You have a serious dandruff problem and the last remaining audience member walks out.
Ian Watson is the author of 'Midnight Movie Madness', a 600+ page guide to "bad" movies from 'Reefer Madness' to 'Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead.'
