Showgirls (1995)

User Rating:

4.0/10   

Director:

Paul Verhoeven

Writer (WGA):

Joe Eszterhas (written by)

Release Date:

22 September 1995 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

Sex, seduction and betrayal.

Plot:

A young drifter, named Nomi, arrives in Las Vegas to become a dancer and soon sets about clawing and pushing her way to become the top of the Vegas showgirls.

Plot Keywords:

Hotel | Stripper | Exotic Dancer | Ambition | Casino

Awards:

9 wins & 8 nominations

US TV Schedule:

Tue. Nov. 10	12:35 AM	MAX
Thur. Nov. 19	10:00 PM	MAX

Cast

Elizabeth Berkley	...	Nomi Malone
Kyle MacLachlan	...	Zack Carey
Gina Gershon	...	Cristal Connors
Glenn Plummer	...	James Smith
Robert Davi	...	Al Torres
Alan Rachins	...	Tony Moss
Gina Ravera	...	Molly Abrams
Lin Tucci	...	Henrietta 'Mama' Bazoom
Greg Travis	...	Phil Newkirk
Al Ruscio	...	Mr. Karlman
Patrick Bristow	...	Marty Jacobsen
William Shockley	...	Andrew Carver
Michelle Johnston	...	Gay Carpenter
Dewey Weber	...	Jeff
Rena Riffel	...	Penny / Hope

Also Known As:

Showgirls (France)

MPAA:

Rated NC-17 for nudity and erotic sexuality throughout, and for some graphic language and sexual violence.; Rated R for strong sexuality, nudity, language, a rape scene and drug use. (edited version)

Runtime:

128 min | USA:131 min (NC-17 version)

Country:

France | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Australia:R | Brazil:18 | Denmark:15 | India:A | Iceland:16 | Ireland:18 (re-release) (cut) | Philippines:R-18 | Argentina:18 | Belgium:KNT | Canada:16+ (Quebec) | Canada:18 (Nova Scotia) | Canada:R (Manitoba/Ontario) | Finland:K-16 | France:-12 | Germany:16 | Hong Kong:III | Iran:(Banned) (DVD rating) | Ireland:(Banned) | Israel:18 (video rating) | Israel:X (original rating) | Italy:VM14 | Japan:R-18 | Malaysia:(Banned) | Netherlands:16 | New Zealand:R18 | Norway:18 | Portugal:M/18 | Singapore:R(A) (original rating) (cut) | Singapore:R21 (re-rating) | South Korea:18 | Spain:18 | Sweden:15 | Taiwan:R-18 | USA:NC-17 | USA:R (cut) | UK:18 (cut)

Filming Locations:

Carson City, Nevada, USA

Company:

Carolco Pictures

Trivia:

Pamela Anderson was a front-runner for the role of Nomi Malone.

Goofs:

Plot holes: When Zack confronts Nomi at the end, he says he found out her real name from the police report for her arrest earlier in the movie. However, upon her release from jail, the officer says, "Malone, you're out of here" indicating she gave her name as Nomi Malone to the police.

Quotes:

[first lines]
Jeff: Hop in, pard!
Nomi Malone: Where are you going?
Jeff: Vegas! Come on! This is your lucky day!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Crap Shoot: The Documentary (2007)

Soundtrack:

WALK INTO THE WIND

The first movie in history that jiggles you into a stupor of boredom

You know the old story of the father who caught his son smoking cigars and locked him in the closet and made him smoke the whole box? The idea, I suppose, was that prolonged exposure to something bad will, psychologically, turn off all urges to repeat that same offense. "Horse Pucky!" I decried, not believing such a tale could possibly be true . . . until I saw Showgirls. I like sexy naked women as much as the next guy but after this movie was jiggled in my face for two and a half hours, I didn't want to see another naked body for about the next two years (Freud would have eaten me alive).

I doubt that the movie had the same effect on Joe Esterhauz, the "author" from whose pen this sheepdip flowed. Not long after the movie came out, I was watching one of those "making of" specials and Esterhauz said that the movie was a hard-boiled expose on the empowerment of women (yeah . . . okay). The special boasted that this was a recurring theme throughout his work which includes Basic Instinct, Flashdance, Jade and Sliver. I guess that Joe and I must have different ideas about female empowerment because his idea seems to be to portray women as hookers, strippers, killers and raging lesbian predators (anything outside those four categories and they're fishfood). He apparently thinks that their best activities for empowerment are knives, lesbianism, sex for cash, violence and nasty sneers (Mr. Freud, you would have had to put overtime in on this one).

In Showgirls, the women could be any one of these things. Violence is so much an afterthought to their personalities that it comes out in their speech, their clothes, their stares, their dancing and even their collegine stuffed lips. It oozes from every pore and even comes out in a scene at a fast food restaurant when the heroine furiously squirts ketchup all over her french fries. For me that scene proved a commentary on the film because, well, you know how when you squeeze a plastic ketchup bottle it makes that loud flatulant noise? You get the idea.

I think Joe knows that he has a lousy script because he keeps throwing in deterrents so that we hopefully won't realize that the script is featherweight. Deterrence like nudity for example which got the film an NC-17 but should have been an NC-95 so no one would have had to sit through it. The characters reside in Vegas but the movie might as well have been staged in a nudist colony. Nearly every scene is littered with wall to wall skin, whether the scene calls for it or not. They dance naked, they sleep naked, they eat naked, they talk while they're naked. The movie is so jam packed with nakedness that the sexy parts are when the women put their clothes back on! Esterhauz turns out the be the only boob attached to this project that is not on screen.

The movie follows the destiny of a walking bag of hostility named Nomi Malone (played by Elizabeth Berkley whose acting comes in two flavors: Stare blankly and blink) who has killer looks and the brain of an appliance bulb. She's a leather-clad bad-chick from the wrong side of the tracks who hitches to Vegas to become a dancer. How are we to be sure that she's bad? She wears leather, carries a switchblade and cakes on enough make-up to make Tammy Faye wince.

Perhaps, she figures, all that badness makes her a human shield against that cold and unfeeling landscape of bitter failure and resentment known as Las Vegas. When she gets there she finds that Vegas is, well, a cold and unfeeling landscape of bitter failure and resentment.

Everyone in the movie approaches Nomi like a lion smacking it's chops. Everyone hates each other (which makes us hate them and therefore the movie) but Esterhauz explains that in this hellish world of hostility and sexual vengence Nomi learns a lesson in morality (Really? I must have blinked).

Before the sun sets on her first day in Vegas, Nomi makes a new best friend, becomes her roommate and gets a job at a strip club - and she's STILL ticked off!! The roommates situation is just an excuse for pseudo-semi-sorta-kinda halfway attempt at some lesbian schianangins hinted at because Nomi and Molly sleep naked in the same bed. Read that again and keep in mind that they've only known each other for one day.

Nomi has dreams of getting a gig with a jiggle and light show called "Goddess" which we are told is the hottest show in town (Yeah, maybe if it were the ONLY show in town). I can't figure why she's so eager to get a part in this thing. IT'S TERRIBLE!! It's like a bizarre tribal dance in which the dancers contort in front of feux volcanos and do spidery things with their fingers. It's like a strange pseudo-seductive dance on Star Trek only the performers lack the decency to look humiliated.

It was also at this point in the movie, when Nomi was watching this mish-mash of tribal garbeldy-gook, that I began to realize just what Showgirls really is - It's Stage Door in stiletto heels. This movie, I realized, is one of those showbiz fables about the callow youth learning the ups and downs and pitfalls of a life on the stage. I waited patiently for the moment when she would push the star of the show down the stairs so that the star would have to be replaced and lo and behold she did! That leads to my favorite moment as the star writhes and groans, a choreographer grabs her knee and squeezes. She screams and he brilliantly concludes "It's her knee"

The show, like the movie is dull, real dull. So dull that you begin looking in the backgrounds for other things to look at. The sets for the show and indeed the entire movie are a hammered collection of sharp, shiny things that glitter in the background and I guess are suppose to make things look sexy. At one point, I was so bored that I began staring at those sets and imaging how the pieces could be cut up and used for Junkyard Wars.