Showgirls

Paul Verhoeven had a certain amount of art-house cred for his early career but once he made it from the Netherlands to Hollywood in the mid-1980s his penchant for tackiness took over.

Penned by Joe Eszterhas who infamously was paid the best part of $4 million for this twaddle (he also wrote Basic Instinct which Verhoeven directed to great success in 1992) it looks and sounds like a cross between a Van Halen video clip and an explicit episode of The Young and The Restless. Little more than an upmarket sexploitation movie about a young woman (Elizabeth Berkley, an actress who has largely worked in television since) looking for fame and fortune in the sin capital of Las Vegas,it was deservedly lambasted by the critics on release.  I'm under the impression that it has since undergone evaluative rehabilitation in some quarters (there's always someone trying to make a name for themselves) although I'm quite happy to throw away the key on this one for being a flagrant waste of film stock and to throw the book at David Lynch alumnus, Kyle MacLachan as an accessory to this cynical exercise in soft-core titillation. .

 

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