For the longest time, I looked at Coyote Ugly and thought of it as a chick flick through and through. So I never watched it. Then people started asking me if I had seen it a lot, and so I figured what the heck. Like The Notebook and A Walk to Remember, Coyote Ugly is one of those “have you seen it? you need to it’s good!” lovey-dovey - add a little bit of alcohol and voila - type of movies. Did that make sense? Probably not, so read-on anyway.

Violet Sanford (Piper Perabo) is from a small town in New Jersey with big dreams. She works at a local diner where a majority of teenage girls have their first jobs or work there at least once before they move away. Kind of like McDonalds, they hire at 14-15, meaning it’s the first job for a majority of young teens going into (and out) of High School.

Violet’s mother was a great singer before she passed away, and Violet took after her mother very well. The thing is, she had stage fright, and so she couldn’t sing in front of people. So Violet, acquiring her mother’s “stage fright DNA,” wants to move to the city so she can become a song writer.

Violet’s dad (John Goodman) doesn’t want her moving out, but eventually has to understand that she’s going to do what she says she wants to do. After Violet moves into her new apartment, she quickly realizes how difficult it’s going to be to be successful. She comes home one night to see her apartment robbed, including her keyboard and her “frozen assets” left by her best friend.

Desperate for a job, she’s eventually led into the direction of Coyote Ugly. Coyote Ugly is a bar owned by Lil (Maria Bello), though it’s not your ordinary bar. The catch - girls dancing on top of the bar wearing skimpy clothing and appear, but not be, single. After some bumpy nights, Violet is forced to stand on the bar and sing to the jukebox in order to break-up a fight. All the while she’s dating Kevin O’Donnell (Adam Garcia), and she must learn about love, courage, and commitment in order to come out on top.

The Ugly Coyote
“Have you ever been so drunk, that you woke up next to someone the next morning that was so disgusting, you’d rather chew your arm off than risk waking them? That’s Coyote Ugly.”

Hmm... and so it may seem. That line is one of the funniest lines in Coyote Ugly, one of many that will at least give you a little chuckle if nothing “snort milk through nostrils” funny. Coyote Ugly really has like 3 different stories at once that have been combined into one big storyline. The overall story is Violet becoming a song writer, but it’s mixed up with her new job at the Coyote Ugly, as well as her love story with Kevin O’Donnell.

Coyote Ugly didn’t win any award for best picture or for any deep thoughtful story, but it’s exciting and it is fun. The sound track wasn’t bad either. LeAnn Rimes provided most of the main songs sung throughout the movie with the more popular ones like Can’t Fight the Moonlight and Right Kind of Wrong. She also made a cameo at the end of the movie, joining in with Violet on the bar in a little duet “show.” Other songs like Pour Some Sugar On Me, and She Just Wants to Dance, Devil Went Down to Georgia, Put Another Dime in the Jukebox as well as a bunch of others finish off the Coyote Ugly soundtrack. Like Shrek, I downloaded a majority of the songs off the Coyote Ugly soundtrack I liked them so much.

As long as you aren’t expecting any award winning performances, Coyote Ugly is a fun light-hearted film that is easily enjoyable by all sorts of people. Piper’s character seemed stiff at times, and John Goodman cracked me up as Violet’s Dad, especially his scene in the last 5 minutes in particular. Coyote Ugly is probably only about $8 or $9 on DVD, and is a cheap, fun movie that most people can enjoy (there is a lot of sexy dancing on the bar though and some parents may take a slight offense to it, but they’ll get over it).

happy viewing

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Better than Watching TV