Coyote Ugly

Every once in a while a teen film comes along that offers a little bit more. Coyote Ugly is one such film – and it's a surprisingly good one at that from producer Jerry Bruckheimer, who has also brought us successes such as Armageddon, and mega-flops such as Pearl Harbor.

This teenage romantic comedy from Bruckheimer follows the story of a budding young songwriter named Violet (Piper Perabo) as she moves from her home in New Jersey to the big smoke of New York. Through a mistake on a barman’s behalf she meets Kevin (Adam Garcia), whom she is told will be able to get her a deal for her songs. After finding out that in actual fact he's just a burger cook, she leaves embarrassed, arriving home to discover her apartment has been trashed. Broke and alone she comes across a bar named Coyote Ugly, where she is told she can get work. And work she gets!

With her really innocent and pure look, newcomer Piper Perabo really shines as Violet. Even the dubbing of Leanne Rimes’ singing voice is very realistic. The workout the Coyotes give the bar is simply… American. The Coyote bartenders even get up on stage (well the bar top at least) and dance the night away, and have some interesting crowd control methods. The addition of John Goodman as Piper’s father is a good choice as he adds a familiar face to the young cast, giving a great performance with the limited scope of the script given to him.

All in all Coyote Ugly is a very entertaining film with some laughs and some clichés, but it was still enough to keep this reviewer entertained for 90 minutes.

Coyote Ugly is presented in a widescreen aspect of 2.35:1 which is 16x9 enhanced. The colours come up very rich, bright and bold, especially within the bar and in New York, whilst softer colours are used for Jersey. Skin tones are realistic, and the shadow detail in darkly lit night scenes is very clean. The transfer boasts some very dark and solid blacks and offers very clean transitions between shadows and the brightly lit faces of actors.

The transfer is very clean with no grain visible whatsoever, and barely any artefacts. Those that were present were not distracting.

The layer change occurs at 69:03 and is very messy. It occurs at a scene change, but the laser changes wavelength a split second after the action of the new scene has already started, so it’s just a timing issue with that one.

The audio is in Dolby Digital 5.1 and right from the word "go", or at least right from Jerry Bruckheimer's logo, you know you are in for a treat. For those who have only experienced this promo on a stereo television, in 5.1 surround it offers so much more. The sound starts at the back, sweeps over the audience and finishes in the centre with a nice full soundstage. So the logo is great… and so is the rest of the audio.

The rear channels were used for the music and effects only, but still enveloped the audience really well. The subwoofer kicked in at every available chance helping the music and the effects, and there are no audio sync dramas.

Coyote Commentary: An entertaining and interesting commentary by the five ‘Coyotes.’ Presented in Dolby 2.0.

Search For The Stars: A look at the screen tests for Piper Perabo, Adam Garcia and also the Coyotes. This sort of feature is fairly rare as an extra, but is very interesting to watch. Presented in Dolby 2.0.

Inside The Songs: Well, if you haven’t guessed it already, it's about the music, and the writing of the songs Can’t Fight The Moonlight and Right Kind Of Wrong. The dubbing over in the movie of vocals by Leanne Rimes is also covered. Presented in Dolby 2.0.

Additional Scenes: The additional scenes are presented with a mastered video track and Dolby Digital 5.1 sound, and are only fair. It is a good thing that they were removed from the final cut, as they are pretty much only extensions of scenes already in the film, and would have added some dark light on Perabo’s character.

Coyote 101: This is just trivia about the bar called Coyote Ugly.

Action Overload: This is presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 and is a compilation of all of the action sequences from the bar. It seems to be a recurring feature of late, such as the B-roll footage on discs such as Charlie’s Angels and Snatch.

Music Video: Leanne Rimes struts her stuff.

Trailer: Presented in Dolby Digital 5.1 with a widescreen aspect of 2.35:1, this trailer is actually pretty good at telling the basis of the story, however the picture is much duller than the actual feature.

A very nice disc to watch, featuring an entertaining film, great picture and sound, and only let down a little by the quality of the extra features. As in Gone In 60 Seconds, another Jerry Bruckheimer production, he tends to take the spotlight in the features and looks way too far into what is a basic and shallow story with simplistic characters. Overall a good job from Touchstone (Warner), but what’s with the special features on a rental-only disc?