Spoiler
LACKING DRAMA, `STRIPTEASE' LITTLE MORE THAN A DEMI MOORE PEEP SHOW
Siskel, Gene. Chicago Tribune; Chicago, Ill.. 28 June 1996
Our Flick of the Week is "Striptease," in which Demi Moore moves a little bit closer to making her ultimate movie, "Demi Goes to the Gynecologist." That's the direction her career is heading after the naked Vanity Fair magazine covers, the chest-heaving in "Disclosure" and the bath in "The Scarlet Letter."
"Striptease" works only as a peep-show look at Moore's fabulous body -- and should be judged as such. She has powerful thighs, and her breasts look great when they are partially covered but implant-stiff when fully exposed, as in her final dance. If you think such criticism is unwarranted, sorry, but her body is precisely what this movie is about.
Moore plays a mother caught in a child-custody battle who takes a job as a nude dancer to pay her legal bills. Burt Reynolds, trying to make a comeback by intentionally playing a fool, co-stars as a drunken, right-wing Southern senator who frequents her club and attacks a patron. Will he be exposed as well? Reynolds' character is a too-giddy rip-off of the drunken politician played better by the Oscar-nominated Charles Durning in "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," which Reynolds also starred in.
Tired ethnic stereotyping abounds in the "Striptease" script, which is at a loss for any kind of drama between Moore's dances. Not for a second do we care about her as a mother, wife or working woman. Only her first dance in a modified man's suit approaches the energy of the much better "Flashdance."
Of course "Striptease" does offer some value; its admission ticket is a lot cheaper than those of the strip clubs, I'm told. Rated R. (star)
Siskel, Gene. Chicago Tribune; Chicago, Ill.. 28 June 1996
Our Flick of the Week is "Striptease," in which Demi Moore moves a little bit closer to making her ultimate movie, "Demi Goes to the Gynecologist." That's the direction her career is heading after the naked Vanity Fair magazine covers, the chest-heaving in "Disclosure" and the bath in "The Scarlet Letter."
"Striptease" works only as a peep-show look at Moore's fabulous body -- and should be judged as such. She has powerful thighs, and her breasts look great when they are partially covered but implant-stiff when fully exposed, as in her final dance. If you think such criticism is unwarranted, sorry, but her body is precisely what this movie is about.
Moore plays a mother caught in a child-custody battle who takes a job as a nude dancer to pay her legal bills. Burt Reynolds, trying to make a comeback by intentionally playing a fool, co-stars as a drunken, right-wing Southern senator who frequents her club and attacks a patron. Will he be exposed as well? Reynolds' character is a too-giddy rip-off of the drunken politician played better by the Oscar-nominated Charles Durning in "The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas," which Reynolds also starred in.
Tired ethnic stereotyping abounds in the "Striptease" script, which is at a loss for any kind of drama between Moore's dances. Not for a second do we care about her as a mother, wife or working woman. Only her first dance in a modified man's suit approaches the energy of the much better "Flashdance."
Of course "Striptease" does offer some value; its admission ticket is a lot cheaper than those of the strip clubs, I'm told. Rated R. (star)
