Coyote Ugly has one primary virtue: it has a lot of eye candy for people who are attracted to the feminine sex. The movie has a lot of fun exploiting that, if you're willing to excuse the lack of plot.
The set up is as follows: Violet (Piper Perabo) is a struggling song writer who has just moved from New Jersey to New York City with the hopes of making it big. When her demo is rejected time and time again, she ends up working in a bar named Coyote Ugly, run by female bartenders. The bartenders, comprising of soon-to-be law student Zoe (Tyra Banks), the straight-as-nails Cammie (Izabella Miko), and the bouncy Rachel (Bridget Moynahan), exploit their sexuality so that the bar owner, a tough coyote named Lil (Maria Bello), can maximise her profit. As Violet struggles overcome her stage-fright and get recognised, and hold her job, she also has to deal with love interest Kevin (Adam Garcia) and her cholesterol-loving father Bill (John Goodman).
The movie has the high level of energy generally seen in Jerry Bruckheimer films, until about three-quarters of the way through, where things start to go downhill for Violet. Her dad is hospitalised. She is fired from the bar. Kevin appears to be seeing someone else. How much more can a girl take? This downslide causes the film to lose momentum and stops it from being fun, because you know everything will resolve out to a happy ending and all of the heartache is just thinly-veiled emotional manipulation.
The movie has a lot of decent dance sequences (using body doubles for the actors) and some good music (The Devil Went Down to Georgia in the flaming bar scene is particularly effective). The classic Spiderman vs. Punisher comic book makes its appearance in mainstream pop culture. The acting is okay and Perabo definitely is extremely charismatic. Goodman puts out the best performance and Adam Garcia shows some potential. Definitely a fun time-killer.