And here we are, folks. This is the one you’ve all been waiting for. We started this theme week off with one of the worst movies of all time and that’s how we’re going to end it, too. This one, unlike all the others, was actually a box office success. I remember the posters for the VHS in all the rental stores as a kid. It was everywhere. The critics, however, were harsher on this movie than any other on our list. Even Showgirls. That’s right, despite nearly tripling its budget at the box office alone, this one sits at a paltry 14% on Rotten Tomatoes. This one also did quite well at the Golden Raspberry Awards, which is not something you want for a movie. Nevertheless, this is a box office hit featuring a major Hollywood actress based on a novel by an author I dig and it’s exactly where it needs to be on Rotten Tomatoes for me to write about it and round out our list.
Obviously, we’re finishing this week with the Happy Ending that is Striptease. This 1996 bomb stars Demi Moore as Erin Grant, a stripper working to regain custody of her daughter, and Burt Reynolds as a corrupt congressman named David Dilbeck with whom Erin gets involved. It’s based on the novel of the same name by Carl Hiaasen. This was directed by Andrew Bergman, who has some bangers in his repertoire. I assume this is a bad stain on his filmmaking legacy, but hey, I’m more of the mindset that if you’re gonna make something terrible, it might as well win awards for its level of badness. This wild ride was quite controversial upon its debut and as previously noted, was thrashed by critics. It’s hailed as corny, over-the-top, ridiculous. I have only seen it once in high school on HBO and don’t remember much about it, so let’s hope it’s not the worst adjective of all: forgettable. Let’s press play.
Our movie begins in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida Civil Court. Erin Grant (Demi Moore) loses custody of her daughter. She argues that her ex-husband Darrell (Robert Patrick) is unfit as a parent, as he is addicted to pills which lost Erin her job with the FBI. The judge (Louis Seeger Crume) sides with her husband, stating that he helped law enforcement by being an informant after he was caught. The judge argues that she can’t be a mother because she doesn’t have a job, which she lost due to Darrell. Darrell laughs and the judge dismisses her case. At the Eager Beaver strip club, congressman David Dilbeck (Burt Reynolds) arrives in a ridiculous wig and outfit looking for “poontang” and we are already off to a phenomenal start here. A poster shows that Erin is a featured dancer of the night, even going by her full government name. A dancer with an enormous chest Urbana Sprawl (nice) (Pandora Peaks) is finishing up her dance. We see our first set of nipples at 3:30 for all you pervs keeping track at home. A stripper named Monique Junior (Dina Spybey) does a routine where she’s dressed like a child while men hoot and holler. Gross. In the dressing room, Erin tries to call Darrell and talk to her daughter Angela (Rumer Willis), but can’t reach them and assumes they moved again to evade her. Erin spills to Urbana about how Darrell drives drunk and high with Angela in the car, but the judge still won’t side with her. She has six weeks to make $15,000 for her appeal or miss her chance at having custody of her daughter. Erin is also worries about telling the judge she’s working as a stripper when she returns for court. Sabrina (PaSean Wilson) tries to reassure her that it’s honest work, but that judge sucks so Erin has a good reason to worry. Erin mentions she’s been dancing eight weeks and still isn’t used to the pre-performance jitters she gets before each show.
Erin goes out to dance. Shad (Ving Rhames), the club’s bouncer, checks on Erin while a monkey sits on his shoulder. Erin is rushed onstage where she does what the title of this movie would refer to as a “striptease”. The dancing is already worlds ahead of Dancing at the Blue Iguana, so this movie has that going for it. Everyone in the club loves her. Dilbeck can barely sip his champagne while watching. I can’t stop laughing out loud at Burt Reynolds’ get-up in this. He recites some weird statements about Erin being an angel under his breath while nerds by the stage cream their jeans over her pole moves. A drunk guy gets onstage and tries grabbing at Erin while Shad is distracted in the back. Dilbeck goes onstage and donks the guy over the head with a champagne bottle before falling off the stage and being escorted off by his security detail. Shad arrives and drags the drunk guy off before the next dancer. Outside, Dilbeck’s handlers are upset that he was recognized at the strip club by patrons.
At a hospital, Darrell steals a wheelchair with Angela disguised as doctor and patient. He lies to Angela about informing Erin where they moved to. Erin goes to visit Rita (Siobhan Fallon) and Alberto (Gary Basarba), Darrell’s sister and brother-in-law, for help finding Angela but Rita offers no help. Alberto, a cop, asks Erin if she does private parties, acting very creepy and ignoring Erin’s pleas for her daughter’s whereabouts. He then comes onto Erin and she politely turns him down instead of socking him in the balls. Erin gets Alberto to leave the room for a minute and steals Rita’s phone bill, in order to learn where Darrell’s been calling from, and leaves. She heads to a 7-Eleven, and I’m hoping she goes inside and does a slow scan of the aisles so I can see what kinds of snacks were on the shelf. Nope. She just inspects the bill and learns that Darrell has been in Deerfield Beach. She tries the numbers but has no luck. By the time she arrives at the house, it’s abandoned with a bunch of Angela’s dolls broken and scattered around. Erin is distraught, with visions of her daughter running into her arms.
At the club, Erin takes the stage with Shad pulling rabid rich men away from harassing her. Backstage, Shad is doing research on cockroaches in order to file a crazy lawsuit, when Erin thanks him for the assistance earlier. The strip club bouncer doing a scam involving cockroaches to make him rich on the side is very Carl Hiaasen. Erin receives a letter from Jerry (William Hill, one of my favorite bit characters on the most underrated sitcom of all time, Becker), an admirer from the club offering help getting her daughter back, and requesting she add Kenny G songs to her routine. The girls tell her to be wary of Jerry’s intentions but Erin seems to trust him. The ladies are informed by club owner Orly (Jerry Grayson) they’ll start wrestling in creamed corn at work next week and all of the women protest. Orly suggests pasta wrestling instead but Erin isn’t having it. She also wants them to change the Eager Beaver logo as the women find it degrading. Outside the club, Jerry finds Erin and gives her some roses. He offers assistance in getting her daughter back again but she warns him he shouldn’t get involved with her before he leaves.
In a video store, lawyer Al Mordecai (Stuart Pankin) takes the case of his nephew, the drunk asshole who Shad beat up at the club for trying to touch Erin. His nephew has a camera with photos his friend took that he believes will help him win a case against the club. Alan seems to also be Shad’s lawyer, as there is yogurt in his fridge marked “Shad” with cockroaches in it. Alan’s secretary eats the yogurt without noticing. Dilbeck’s handler Malcolm (Paul Guilfoyle) reprimands Dilbeck for assaulting Alan’s nephew and tells him Jerry wants to meet with Dilbeck to get the judge to reverse the custody case for Erin in order to help Dilbeck out with the case, as Jerry was the witness who identified Dilbeck. Malcolm insists Dilbeck string Jerry along to get what he wants without actually helping Erin. Dilbeck meets with Jerry and gives him that tanned, dyed-blonde Florida sleaze charm. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Al Garcia (Armand Assante) relaxes at a cabin with his wife Donna (Francis Fisher, who played Becker’s girlfriend on Becker. Let me find out this movie has a bunch of Becker connections and it’ll be my new favorite). His son Andy (Teddy Bergman) tells his dad he found a dead body floating in the water while fishing. The body is that of Jerry. Al does a paraphrase of Rick’s dialogue from Casablanca, essentially victim blaming a dead man for fucking up his vacation. Erin and Angela reunite at the beach for her visitation. She chastises Darrell for constantly moving, not allowing Angela a fair chance to develop friends and a sense of community. Darrell watches closely to ensure Erin doesn’t take Angela and run.
Erin learns from Angela that Darrell is scamming hospitals for wheelchairs. Darrell, the dickwad he is, lays on his horn at the two-hour mark to end the visitation. Angela remarks that Darrell “can’t find” all her dolls (which he clearly left behind in their old house) and promises to get new ones for her. Erin warns Darrell that using Angela to commit a felony will result in her going into foster care. I guess judges really didn’t trust stripper moms in the 90s because this whole scenario is so unrealistic. Shad goes to talk to Alan and he’s angry. Alan dismisses the fact that Shad beat his nephew up but mentions that Dilbeck was caught on camera in the pictures provided. Alan mentions that Dilbeck is up for reelection and the corporate family who politically owns Dilbeck can’t afford to let him lose, therefore Alan and Shad can blackmail Dilbeck for tons of money. Shad okays it but warns to keep Erin out of everything. At the club, Erin tries to reach Jerry, not knowing he’s dead. Al Garcia comes into the club asking to talk to Erin. He shows her Jerry’s picture and informs her Jerry’s dead, and mentions he was obsessed with her, with his apartment covered in photos of her. She’s standoffish in talking to Al but relents and speaks to him. Erin decudes how Jerry was killed quickly and admits to Al that she used to work for the FBI and that Jerry was attempting to help her in her custody battle. She tells Al all she knows is Jerry was attempting to meet with a congressman to assist her, but she doesn’t know which one. Al leaves his number and Erin discusses her situation with Al, filling her in on Darrell’s activities and asking him to use his connections to right the wrong of her situation. He offers to see what he can do before leaving.
Dilbeck meets with Chris Rojo (José Zúñiga), the son of the sugar business family that has Dilbeck in their pocket. Chris warns Dilbeck not to cause any more trouble over strippers but Dilbeck admits his obsession with Erin. Al visits Erin at home where he tells her Darrell lost his informant status with the vice squad, but also tells Erin that the judge had a heart attack at a porn theater that morning and died, and her appeal has been backed up six months. Al apologizes that there’s nothing she can do from a legal standpoint and Erin rushes out of the house. Dilbeck is at a Jewish community event where Alan shows Dilbeck the photos of him assaulting his nephew and all Dilbeck cares about is that Erin is in the photo and he finally knows where he saw the stripper he’s obsessed with.
Erin finds Angela and steals her back from her father. Rumer Willis looks so much like her actual father in this scene with the faces she makes. It’s great. Erin and Angela arrive back at Erin’s place with all her stuff. Dilbeck and his assistant Erb (Robert Stanton) spy from a nearby car, noting they have an awful lot of things with them for a mere custody visitation. Erb doesn’t want Dilbeck to get involved, but Dilbeck insists he’s in love and he wants Erb to steal Erin’s underwear for him. This shit is going off the rails quick. Erb steals some dryer lint from the machine Erin uses at the laundromat. That’s some demented shit. Lock the congressman up now! The Rojo family discuss how to deal with Dilbeck’s blackmail case. They note that he wants to bang Erin and insist on having them use the boat so they can watch him. They discuss the fact that Erin illegally took custody of her daughter and therefore they can keep her at bay with this knowledge. The Rojo patriarch Willy (Gianni Russo) insists Dilbeck have “his fun” with Erin and they then kill her so she can’t be a risk.
At the club, Angela sneaks away from the dressing room while Erin meets a new dancer. Erin does a dance routine on stage. Erb goes to find Dilbeck who is standing in a room in boxers, a vest and a cowboy hat, completely Vaselined up sniffing Erin’s dryer lint. Straight to prison! Dilbeck is supposed to give a speech to a young Christians organization and Erb has had enough and quits. Dilbeck makes it out to the stage clean but still greasy. He gives a speech on family values. We’re supposed to laugh at the contrast but now 26 years later, this isn’t like some big revelation that politicians are liars who do the opposite of what they say. At the club, Erin has Angela stay in the dressing room while she goes to get her car. Shad confesses to Erin that he needs a new job. Darrell puts a knife to Erin’s neck in her car, demanding Angela back. Erin tells Darrell he has to kill her to get to Angela since the judge is dead and his protection is gone. Shad approaches the car and basically breaks Darrell’s wrist before beating him a little more and throwing him in a puddle. Shad then stomps Darrell’s hand. Pretty solid guy that Shad. He is very protective of the dancers and giving them agency. Erin calls the cops and Darrell is arrested. Erin meets with Al who discusses the fact that if Darrell can make bail, he’ll get custody because he only threatened her life, didn’t act on it. Sadly, that sounds familiar. Al tells her not to run away or she may never get to see Angela again. He shows Erin pictures of suspects from the assault and she identifies Dilbeck as the man who committed the assault. She puts two and two together and realizes that’s who Jerry was going to speak to, fearing that her and Angela are now in danger. Al insists she contact him if she hears anything.
At home, Erin finds a note requesting a meeting with Dilbeck, offering her $2,000 for a private hour-long dance as long as she treats it with discretion. Angela asks her mom if she likes dancing and confesses she watched Erin dance earlier that night. Erin seems ashamed but Angela says she looked pretty and seems proud of her mom. Rumer Willis is easily the highlight of this movie. Al and Erin take Angela to Sea World where Angela participates in the dolphin show while Erin and Al discuss Dilbeck’s offer. Al offers his and his wife’s help with taking care of Angela while Erin gets herself stable again, reminding her that she’s a good person, she just made the mistake of marrying a bum like many people do.
Erin accepts the offer from Dilbeck and goes to board the boat with Shad accompanying her. Erin goes to meet with Dilbeck and he’s nervous. He kisses her hand and she tries to make small talk. She dances for Dilbeck to Prince as Shad discusses the agony of dealing with breasts all day with Dilbeck’s security. Dilbeck tries to tell Erin he helped her with her custody case and she tries to get information our of him about Jerry while an Malcolm listens nearby with a device. Dilbeck confesses that Erb stole her dryer lint. He confesses he “made love” to the lint. Gross. She smacks him for the lint and tells him to never invade her personal life again before ending the show. He offers her $5,000 to come back the next day and she tells him she’ll think about it only if they can discuss her case. She goes to leave and Malcolm warns Erin they know of her illegal custody and will keep her secret as long as she doesn’t cooperate with any takedowns of Dilbeck, warning her that Angela’s safety is at risk if she discusses Dilbeck with anyone. She meets with Al and is brief and standoffish, fearing for Angela’s safety. Al is suspicious of how short she is with him.
In the club, dancer Lorelei (Barbara Alyn Woods) gets choked by a python onstage. Her previous python was killed in a revenge tactic by her former boss and this replacement was not properly trained to be in her act. This really happened in the movie. Al gets Shad and has him come down to the morgue to identify lawyer Alan who turned up dead in some water eaten by crabs. Al asks Shad why Shad’s info was on Alan’s calendar, noting that he represented the kid who Shad beat up at the club. Shad is sickened by the sight of Alan’s dead body and almost pukes. Shad shares what he knows to Al, that Alan had a picture of Dilbeck beating the kid and discusses Erin’s deal with Dilbeck. Erin spends the night calling around trying to various news stations alerting them of a news conference with Dilbeck at the old refinery. I’m not sure what she’s got planned but I’m signed up.
Darrell is out of jail and staying with Rita, asking her for some of the dog morphine she has at her house because he got into a fight in jail. Outside the club, a limo driver reads an L. Ron Hubbard novel. Erin leaves Angela with Orly and the other dancers at the club and vows to be back to dance the late shift at 2am. Shad confronts her about lying to him, saying she wasn’t going back to the boat. She tells him she didn’t want Al finding out but he insists on knowing the truth. She confesses Dilbeck’s guys will put Angela in a foster home if she doesn’t comply. Shad refuses to let Erin go to the boat alone but Erin insists he watch Angela. Darrell is outside the club watching while still chugging dog pills. What a fucking buffoon. He attempts to follow Erin but his driving is unbelievably erratic as he’s fucked up on dog pills.
Erin is dirven in a limo by Pierre (Anthony Jones) who she bonds with as they both thing Dilbeck and the Rojo family are scum, with Pierre noting they are exploiters of the poor. Shoutout this movie. Malcolm warns Dilbeck that Erin has been speaking with a homicide cop and that she used to be in the FBI. Malcolm tells Dilbeck to fuck her then send her out and they’ll get rid of her. Erin arrives at the boat and the guards radio in that she’s alone. The cartoon element of this film, Darrell, just won’t quit and he goofily sneaks onto the boat without the armed guards noticing. Of course. I feel like the movie would be much better without the attempt at comic relief but hey, nothing’s perfect. Erin dances for Dilbeck as Darrell approaches Malcolm with a pickaxe demanding Angela back. He then pulls a gun on Malcolm and shoots, but it’s empty. He looks down and sees Erin dancing for Dilbeck before Malcolm attempts to strike him with an axe but Darrell fights him off before striking him to death under the assumption Malcolm is responsible for Angela being taken. Darrell comes down into the room where Erin is dancing and starts dancing himself with a bloody weapon in hand.
Back at the club, Al is looking for Erin when Shad confesses where she is. Shad, Al, Angela and dancer Tiffany (Rena Riffel) rush off to the boat. Darrell confesses to killing Malcolm and threatens Dilbeck for saying he’s trying to fuck Erin. Erin sticks both of them up at gunpoint and leads them off the boat as security goes up top to find Malcolm bloody and incapacitated, but not dead as previously stated. The guards shoot at Erin as she and Pierre drive off with Darrell and Dilbeck at gunpoint. The guards go to give chase but Pierre fucked with their cars. Erin forces Darrell to write a note stating he grants custody of Angela to Erin so she won’t end up a foster child after he is inevitably arrested later. Darrell is too fucked up to write. Al and the gang arrive at the boat and Al charges onto the boat with his gun drawn to find Belle Glade Refinery written on the mirror in lipstick, noting that Erin is “nuts” before following the trail further with Shad and the gang. Armand Assante and Ving Rhames are also great in this.
At the refinery, Pierre and Erin lead Dilbeck out of the car but Darrell is too fucked up off pills and Erin writes the custody note for him and makes him sign. She leaves the gun on the seat as he signs the paper and Dilbeck sneaks up behind her and grabs her. Erin plays along with it, telling Dilbeck to take her like a man, noting she has the perfect spot. Malcolm and the enforcers are racing off to the refinery as well. Dilbeck struck Pierre with a rock, seemingly killing him. Erin leads Dilbeck to a large pile of sugar in the refinery where they dance to Dean Martin and talk before she’ll let him fuck her. She has the tape recorder on to catch all his confessions as he proposes marriage to her. Dilbeck confesses to Jerry’s murder, implicating Malcolm right as Malcolm and security arrive with their guns out. At Willie’s orders, Erin and Dilbeck must be killed, making it look like a murder-suicide so the Rojo family can finally wash their hands of Dilbeck. However, Shad arrives right as Malcolm calls Erin a stripper which enrages Shad, as he likes to refer to the women as dancers. Shad advances on the goons and Malcolm, telling them to drop their guns because he’s psycho and ready to kill even unarms. He gets the upper-hand on the guards and takes a gun. Al arrives and announces all the guys are under arrest. Darrell wakes up and attempts to get coffee but starts the sugar refinery because he is literally a fucking Looney Tunes character. He passes out as sugar fills the refinery, pinning the bad guys down in the stupidest fashion of all time like ever. This movie went from kinda sexy sleazy mystery to ridiculous cartoon really quick. The news crews arrive for the “conference” Erin called in, catching Dilbeck literally with his pants down.
Dilbeck is arrested, as Erin had the tape with Dilbeck confessing to Alan’s and Jerry’s murders. Al and Erin vow to keep in touch as she takes off with Angela. Pierre is recovering from his injuries and Shad tells Erin she shouldn’t have done this without him. She promises it won’t happen again and that’s our movie.
Okay, honestly? This might be the best one I saw all week. Sure, it has the unfair advantage of being based on a Carl Hiaasen novel, and therefore the story is so much more developed and layered, but the whole package was just better than the rest from this week. Sure, it devolved into a Saturday morning cartoon with Darrell, but aside from that attempt at comic relief, this was a solid movie. I definitely enjoyed it and I hope you will as well, because this one will take a financial investment of $2.99 on Vudu, as it is currently not streaming anywhere. Thanks for joining us for the sexiest theme week we’ve had yet. I’ll be back soon with another installment, but for now, cue up the Eurythmics and dim the lights while Demi takes you for a ride on the pole. Don’t say I didn’t warn ya.