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Recap Attack: “Showgirls”

“I’m gonna dance!”

Nomi Malone has a dream, damn it. With a beat-up suitcase at her feet, she stands with her thumb out at the side of a desert highway, 300-odd miles from her destination: Las Vegas. In under 10 seconds, a pick-up truck pulls over. The driver’s doing his very best young Elvis impression. He invites her to sit closer. “Chill!” she exclaims at the mere suggestion. Nomi’s from the streets-we can tell by the way she handles herself and that switch blade she whips out to keep Elvis at bay.

You only get that kind of street tough from living on the seedy side of town. That’s also where you get a fringed leather jacket like the one Nomi’s wearing.

It’s nightfall by the time they pull into Vegas. Elvis tells Nomi to leave the Samsonite in the truck. He can help her find a job: “My uncle is a host at the Riviera.” She hangs out in the casino playing slots until it dawns on her he isn’t coming back. Nomi runs out to the parking lot where the truck was parked. Elvis has left the building.

Nomi throws her whole body against the car next to her. “F**k! F**k! F**k!” is all she can say as she pounds away at the defenseless Toyota. Played by Elizabeth Berkley, Nomi is leggy and tall, with plump lips that never fully close, saucer eyes and curly blonde hair. She’s exactly like an inflatable sex doll, but with less acting talent.

A short black woman runs up to her. “Hey! That’s my car!” Stop over-emoting all over it, bitch. They tussle. Nomi turns and pukes for no apparent reason. Perhaps her acting is making her ill too? Nomi runs out into oncoming traffic. The stranger pulls her back just as a car blows by. They stumble to the sidewalk, holding onto each other. Wordlessly, their faces pull close. The stranger hugs puke-breath Nomi. This scene is a bunch of baloney.

What do you do with a crazy woman who assaults your car? Why, buy her dinner, of course. Nomi is still fuming. She jabs her straw into her soda cup like she’s cutting someone’s heart out.

“Where ya from?” asks Molly, the kind stranger.

“Back East,” Nomi says vaguely. Now she’s stabbing violently at her ketchup with a french fry.

“Where back East?” her new friend tries to make conversation.

Different places!!!” Nomi blows her top. She throws her basket of fries across the table and grabs her soda angrily. The chick really hates fast food.

Cut to six weeks later. Molly and Nomi are sharing a double-wide off the strip, eating chips and sharing clothes. Life is good. And improbable. Molly is a seamstress working for the Stardust Casino’s big topless extravaganza, Goddess, sewing G-strings. Why didn’t director Paul Verhoeven, or writer Joe Eszterhas, whose other credits include Basic Instinct, use a better hotel for this movie? Perhaps Steve Wynn and that gang wanted nothing to do with this mess?

Nomi accompanies Molly to work. Watching the show from the back of the house, Nomi’s eyes light up like a neon sign. A set comprised of props from an old Star Trek alienscape covers the stage, as nearly naked dancers frolic and writhe over the rocks. There’s a flash pot bang, and foam boulders “explode” back on their hinges. It’s about as realistic as the Earthquake! ride at Universal Studios. Out of the smoke rises Gina Gershon. And she’s just about naked. A moment of silence please.

On cue, all the dancers start stripping. Playing the show’s “big star,” Cristal Connors, Gina dances passably in the ridiculously choreographed number that looks like a Larry Flynt production of Antigone. Michael Kidd must be rolling over in his grave. Nomi Baloney is enthralled.

Molly brings Nomi backstage to meet Cristal.

“Where do you dance at, darlin’?” asks Cristal.

“Um, at the Cheetah,” Nomi says, embarrassed.

“I don’t how good you are, darlin’, and I don’t know what it is you’re good at. But if it’s at the Cheetah, it ain’t dancing.” I guess it’s like saying you’re a chef … at Hooters.

Hot-headed Nomi isn’t going to stand for Miss Thang telling her she can’t dance! “You don’t know s**t!” Nomi says as she storms out.

Out in the parking lot, Molly scolds Nomi for making a scene at her job. “I’m sorry!!” she screams and throws herself onto another car roof. There should be a drinking game where every time Nomi throws herself on a car, everyone does a shot.

Molly and Nomi go to a dance club where she meets James, a dreadlocked guy with whom she has an oddly violent dance-off, which ends when she knees him in the groin. I guess that means she won? Nomi gets thrown in jail for starting the fight, but James, recognizing the true dancer in her artist’s soul, bails Nomi out of the clink. James is smitten.

At the Cheetah, we meet the heart-of-gold crew Nomi works with: the fat lady emcee with a mouth like a sailor and a trick dress that flashes her boobs when she flaps her arms, a pock-faced manager who dispenses sage advice such as how big a tip is acceptable for a lap dance with release, and other assorted classy acts. No one seems to be working their way through college, like real strippers do.

Cristal and the hotel’s entertainment director, Zack Carey, pull up to the Cheetah in a limo. They grab a front row table. Smoking a cigar, Cristal watches as Nomi licks the entire length of the pole to the beat of a Prince song. Nomi thrashes around the stage the same way she throws herself against cars. Cristal leers at Zack, “You like her? I’ll buy her for you.”

Cristal tries to buy a lap dance with Nomi for herself and Zack. The Cheetah is a classy joint and won’t go for it, so Cristal has to settle for watching Zack get a lap dance. This is nonsense, because every strip club I’ve ever been to would let a ferret get a lap dance if you were willing to pay for it. Cristal has to go as high as $500 to get a private room with Nomi.

Gina’s wearing a two-piece outfit made of chain mail or something—she looks like a medieval hooker. Nomi’s wearing—well nothing, really. Zack is played by Kyle MacLachlan, who also played Charlotte’s erectile-challenged husband Trey, in Sex and the City. Here as Zack, he has no such problem.

“Dancing ain’t f**king,” James tells Nomi. He can’t make Nomi see she has “too much talent.” Nomi doesn’t want to hear it. Flush with her big tip from Cristal, Nomi buys her first designer dress: a little black Versace number. They don’t have Versace on the seedy side of town; Nomi thinks it’s pronounced “Versase.”

Cristal arranges for Nomi to audition for the chorus line in her Stardust show. They’re going for an All About Eve thing here, except instead of the ingénue insinuating herself into the life of the older star, it’s Cristal who goes hunting for Nomi. OK, whatever, it’s not like any of this matters.

Nomi’s lack of actual training or talent seems to work in her favor at the Goddess audtion. Show producer Tony Moss is played by the great Alan Rachins, who’s a long way from the Dharma & Greg set. He takes a liking to Nomi. Cristal’s there too, watching as Tony says, “Show me your tits” to each girl. She and Nomi lock eyes and smile suspiciously at each other. There’s a disturbing little scene involving nipples and ice cubes, and Cristal’s cat-like interest is lapping it up.

“I hate you,” Nomi says to Cristal.

“I know,” Cristal replies, amused as all hell.

ames doesn’t approve of Nomi’s dream to dance in Goddess. He confronts her in front of the Stardust. “What you’re doing, at least it’s honest. Here, they pretend it’s something else, and you still show them tits and ass.” There’s nobility to stripping that Nomi just doesn’t understand.

Nomi gets the job, but can’t seem to remember her birthday or social security number when she goes to the personnel office. Even though they have no W-9 on her, she somehow gets paid and no one seems to care.

“Tony, she’s all pelvic thrust. She prowls. She’s got it,” concludes Marty, one of the dance captains. Marty is played by Patrick Bristow, the red-headed gay friend on Ellen. Here, he’s not supposed to be funny, but when he yells to Nomi to do a piqué turn, like she knows what the hell that is, it’s hilarious.

There’s a bunch of tutu-wearing monkeys loose in the dressing room. Nothing screams good cinema like monkeys and strippers. It’s Nomi’s big night and she’s so excited, she can hardly plaster on her traffic-cone orange stage makeup. Her debut is slightly marred by a small slip on some monkey poo onstage, but otherwise she’s ecstatic to have made it to the big time.

The next day, Cristal and Nomi try to rehearse together, but there’s too much sexual tension and hatred between them. Cristal’s wearing a leather jacket like Nomi’s, but it’s encrusted with rhinestones and comes with a matching hat. This is supposed to tell us she’s just like Nomi, but she’s a star now, and can afford the finest, white-trash outfits the Strip has to offer. Instead of rehearsing—because really, why bother?—they go to lunch. The dancers are restricted to a diet of brown rice, vegetables and cocaine.

“You really like brown rice and vegetables?” asks Cristal.

Nomi admits, “It’s worse than dog food.”

Cristal reveals she’s eaten dog food. They bond instantly over former hard times when all they could afford was Doggy Chow. Not for nothing, but ramen noodles are about 30 cents, aren’t they? Cristal and Nomi make googly eyes at each other as they sip champagne and talk about their breasts.

“I like nice tits; I always have. How ’bout you?” Cristal oozes as she stares at Nomi’s chest. Sadly, Nomi doesn’t want to play Flirt With the Lesbian Stripper.

She says, “I like having them.”

“How do you like having them?” Cristal asks leadingly.

“I like having them in a nice dress,” says Nomi. Killjoy.

Eventually, Cristal and Nomi do rehearse together—there’s lots of grinding and stroking, and Cristal yanks down Nomi’s top and starts playing with her exposed boobies. They almost kiss but Cristal ruins the moment by saying, “Ya see darlin’, you are a whore.” Why couldn’t she wait and say that after a long, tonguey, girl kiss? Damn you, Gina.

Later that night, the dressing room is a hive of showgirl activity. One of the dancers has her two kids, a boy and a girl, with her. It’s wall-to-wall tits, but the little tykes don’t seem to notice. The girl is actually holding a teddy bear.

The monkeys are around, and the little girl asks, “Mommy, can we see the monkeys?”

Naked mommy says, “Not now sweetie, the monkeys are busy.”

“I wanna see the monkeys, why can’t we see the monkeys?!?” the little brat starts to whine. A nearby dancer says, “Will you get these f**king kids out of here?” Thank you. I hate kids.

The little cherubs turn and gasp. “You said the F-word,” the annoying girl says, totally scandalized. She isn’t fazed by the T&A around her but the F-word makes her stop in her little patent-leather tracks.

“Shut the f**k up!” the dancer tells the girl.

The girl starts to cry and runs to mommy, throwing herself into Mommy’s bosom, being careful not to smudge the make-up Mommy applied to her nipples. Mommy shoots the other dancer a how-dare-you look.

Nomi gets an offer to appear at a boat show in the casino, thanks to Cristal. At the show, she finds out the real gig is to party with some of the high rollers. “We’ll go back to my place,” says the oily casino rep. Insulted they would even imagine she’d compromise her integrity, Nomi storms off, probably to throw herself on the nearest car hood.

Zack makes it all right when Nomi tells him what happened. He whips out a cell phone the size of a shoe (it’s 1995, after all), and chews the casino rep out.

Showgirl mom decides she’s going to get the one who made her little angels cry. She throws some beads out on the stage floor during a performance. There’s a tragic accident and the dancer is out of commission. Topless dancing sure is a cutthroat world. Who knew?

A visit to the show from her old Cheetah friends gets Nomi feeling all nostalgic. “Must be weird not having anybody c** on you,” says the Cheetah’s pock-faced manager. So sweet.

Zack offers Nomi a ride home, but instead they go to his place, a swanky house with a pool and neon palm trees. “You like Cristal?” she asks.

“I like a lot of different champagnes,” he replies, ignoring what she was really asking him.

Nomi strips her clothes off and jumps in Zack’s pool. We get an ass shot of Zack as he joins her. They kiss under the porpoise waterfall and start to have pool sex. Nomi is thrashing around like a fish on a dock as she straddles him. You want to avert your eyes, but you just can’t. Zack is enamored with Nomi, but she won’t stay for breakfast; she’s late for acting class.

Nomi gets the chance to audition to be Cristal’s understudy. “She’s got it down,” observes Tony.

“Nobody’s got Cristal’s heat,” says the dance captain.

“Nomi’s got heat,” Zack offers.

Cristal senses something’s up. “Does she now?” she says suspiciously eyeing Zack. “Nobody’s going to take my lead anyway, darlin’. I haven’t missed a show in eight years.”

Tony puts his arm around Cristal and says, “You’re not getting any younger.”

“Eat me,” Cristal says.

Cristal’s not happy either. “You f**ked her, didn’t you?”

“Does that piss you off because you’re jealous, Cris? Or is it because I beat you to the punch?” Zack says smugly. Nothing sucks more than having your boyfriend bed the woman you’re hot for.

Cristal and Nomi have another love/hate encounter in Cristal’s dressing room. They spend the whole movie giving each other smoldering looks and touching each other, but nothing ever comes of it. We’re teased to no end with the promise of some real sex between Nomi and Cristal, but ultimately the film is as unsatisfying and disappointing as a bad lap dance.

James (remember him?), has a new original show that no one cares about. Nomi shows up to support him, but he’s literally booed off the stage. So much for art. That’s the last we see of James.

Nomi gets a letter informing her they’re withdrawing the offer to be Cristal’s understudy. She goes to see Zack in his office, which has cheesy wood paneling and posters of Cristal on the walls. Nomi knows Cristal’s behind this. “She got her lawyers into it. She’s a big star; you’re not worth it,” Zack tells Nomi. And just what can her lawyers do? Can you really sue because your co-worker won’t sleep with you?

The new show at the Stardust features motorcycles and a sort of S/M-meets-Cabaret-meets-Rhythm Nation theme. Nomi’s wearing an outfit with cut outs, a dog-collar choker and buckles up the back. She rides a motorcycle onto the stage. There are no limits to the idiocy.

The sexual tension and professional and personal jealousies finally make Nomi snap. Exiting the stage, Nomi pushes Cristal, sending her tumbling down a flight of stairs. Cristal gets hauled away in an ambulance, neatly tucked into a stretcher.

“She’s got a concussion and a compound fracture of the right hip,” reports Zack as he folds up his enormous phone. Did he say a compound fracture of the hip? Why not say a lung fell out?

This being Vegas, the Show Must Go On. But what to do? Tony smirks at the idea of a replacement. “Cristal Connors is a star; you can’t just replace her.” If you can’t just replace her, then why did you hold auditions for her understudy, dumbass?

They throw some names around. Janet Jackson, Paula Abdul. “Paula Abdul? In my show?” Tony says dismissively. Cristal Connors is a bigger name than Paula Abdul? Name one lead dancer in a Vegas topless review. I’ll wait.

“Well in that case, we do what we do in Vegas. We gamble,” says Zack.

There’s a flash-pot bang, and the foam boulders explode back on their hinges. Out of the smoke rises Nomi Malone. She finally got what she wanted, but not everyone is happy. Molly knows what Nomi did.

“You pushed her, didn’t you?” Molly asks.

Nomi denies it, “No: Julie saw it.” Molly knows she’s lying. You should have left her in that parking lot.

Molly shows up to the after party, even though she’s mad at Nomi. She’s only there because her idol, singer Andrew Carver, was invited too. Carver looks like the antichrist Michael Bolton, pre-haircut. Molly catches Carver’s eye and he brings her back to a private room. Quickly, things go very wrong. Carver and his two goons violently rape Molly. Nomi has no idea what’s going on as she mingles outside, enjoying the fireworks and being Zack’s main ho.

At the hospital, Nomi wants to call the cops, but Carver is Zack’s bud and won’t have it.

“Don’t do it … Polly,” he says as Nomi picks up a pay phone.

Nomi freezes. “How did you find out?”

The jig is up. Zack pulls out a manila folder and starts reading loudly: “Your father killed your mother, then killed himself. You ran away from a foster home in Oakland. Arrests: Denver, soliciting; San Jose, soliciting; Cheyenne, soliciting … ”

Nomi explains, “I did what I had to do.” She starts to cry.

Gee, and here I thought she was a Mount Holyoke girl.

Nomi keeps a bedside vigil for Molly. Her face transforms into a look of determination. Nomi has a plan.

Dressed in a matching black-and-animal-print halter top and miniskirt, she goes to see the pig, Andrew Carver. He’s happy and surprised to see her. Nomi starts teasing him with her body. “Wait until you see me bottomless,” she purrs, as if someone hasn’t seen her bottomless. Her nipples are really red, like she painted them on. OK, now she really looks like an inflatable party doll.

When Nomi has Carver distracted, she reaches into her skirt and pulls out her switchblade. In a flash, she’s got the thing to his throat. “Don’t make a sound, or I’ll f**king kill you!”

Nomi finally finds a good use for her violent, thrashing temper. Using her stiletto boots, she kicks the snot out of Carver, slamming her boots into his face over and over. She throws in a few spinning kicks for good measure, finally putting her dancing experience to good use.

We never get even one shot of his bloody face, and I feel gypped. After he’s unconscious on the floor, she strolls out past the body guards who have been sitting outside the suite door the entire time. “He wants to sleep,” she says. They snicker knowingly.

Nomi goes to the hospital to tell Molly about her act of revenge. She leans over the bed, and her boob practically falls out of her wide-open shimmery shirt. Even in times of sincerity, she’s still Nomi Malone.

Before she leaves the hospital, Nomi goes to see Cristal, who’s recovering from her compound hip fracture and lung dislodgement.

“Thanks and good night, ladies and gentlemen, Cristal has left the building,” Cristal says, all melancholy.

“I’m sorry,” says Nomi.

“Yeah, I know just how sorry you are. How do you think I got my first lead?” Cristal says.

Nomi turns to leave. “I gotta go.”

Cristal says, “Aren’t ya gonna come here and give me a big kiss?” Well aren’t ya? Nomi slowly leans in and finally, they kiss. It’s a sweet one.

“Bye, darlin'” Cristal says.

I guess that’s it for these two. They’re never going to knock ba-donk-a-donks. I sat through this entire stinker, and that’s it? That’s two hours of my life I’ll never get back.

Nomi stands on the side of the road with her thumb out. A truck pulls over. It’s Elvis. He doesn’t recognize Nomi in her sunglasses. “Did you gamble?” he asks. She smiles and takes off her glasses. “Oh f**k, it’s you!” he exclaims.

She pulls out her blade. “I want my f**king suitcase!” she yells. The camera pulls back as we watch the truck moving away from us, then swings wide to reveal Nomi’s Goddess billboard, and pans to a road sign. “Los Angeles—280 miles.”

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