Striptease (1996)

Striptease is at its best as a sweaty, sunburnt slice of Florida noir-comedy, where Demi Moore plays a mother fighting for her kid with a mix of grit, bruised pride, and surprising warmth. Andrew Bergman leans into Carl Hiaasen-style satire, populating the story with gloriously crooked politicians, hustlers, and oddballs, and Burt Reynolds has a field day embodying the kind of public servant who should come with a warning label. The dialogue snaps, the vibe is shamelessly lurid but knowingly so, and the movie’s real pleasure is watching its characters collide in a world where everyone wants something and nobody’s hands are clean. It isn’t subtle and it’s not for viewers who want a straightforward drama, but if you’re in the mood for a slick, trashy, funny crime tale with sharp edges and committed performances, it’s a surprisingly entertaining watch.

Striptease is clearly aiming for a cheeky, adult satire about hypocrisy and power, with a single mom using the only leverage she’s got to fight a rigged system. The problem is it can’t decide what it wants to be—sex comedy, political farce, or crime thriller—so the tone lurches around and the stakes never land with the punch it’s reaching for. Demi Moore commits and there are flashes of funny, sleazy Florida energy, but the pacing drags and the “sexy” angle is oddly unsexy, more noisy than seductive. If you want a sharp satire or a genuinely tense thriller, you’ll likely be irritated; if you can tolerate messy mid-90s camp with a few solid performances, you might find it watchable in spite of itself.