Producer Jerry Bruckheimer has definitely fallen off the deep end this time. He's never been a man known for bringing profound pieces of art to the screen, but he's always tried to deliver a good time, and with the infectiously likable, yet ridiculous Coyote Ugly, it's hard to determine exactly who the target audience is.

Piper Perabo (Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle) is a young gal with aspirations of being a professional songwriter. She moves all the way to the big city (actually, she only moves from New Jersey to New York City) to pursue her aspirations, but must overcome terrible stage fright to make her dreams come true. To make a living, she takes a job at The Coyote Ugly, a loud, rowdy bar, in which all the bartenders are sexy woman who pour drinks and strut their stuff.

Coyote Ugly moves at a meandering pace to say the least. As you watch it, you will almost certainly feel as if you missed something, but you haven't. The characters are one dimensional, and the plot seems to be strung together with leftovers from Cocktail and Flashdance. Still, many of the performances are appealing--most notably, Maria Bello (E.R., Payback) as the owner of Coyote Ugly, and John Goodman as Perabo's father. Perabo seems comfortable, but I wouldn't call this a star making performance. She strives to give us a kind of Julia Roberts warmth, but because of a really stupid story, it never really shines through.

It's hard to see how a film like Coyote Ugly could get greenlighted, even by someone like Bruckheimer. I've never heard of director David McNally, and his MTV style is more annoying than anything else. Coyote Ugly isn't the bottom of the barrel, but it is pretentious, derivative and forgettable.