Lap Dance

This film is supposedly based on the true story of screenwriter/director Greg Carter and his girlfriend Junie Hoang as they struggled to earn money while trying to make their way to California to further their careers. Carter is Black and Hoang is Asian, yet Carter chose two Caucasian actors for the leads. Why? Did he think it would make the film more marketable? More palatable to White audiences? If so, he greatly miscalculated because the film tanked at the box office.

If Carter incorrectly portrays something as basic as the ethnicities of the protagonists, then the other events in this movie are probably fabricated as well. For example, he expects us to believe that his girlfriend worked as a stripper, hung out with rappers and drug dealers, was paid thousands of dollars for "companionship," yet remained completely faithful to him throughout most of her ordeal. I don't buy it.

There are several respectable actors in the movie, but they are all past their prime, and Carter doesn't use them to full advantage. Stacey Dash is only on screen for about 45 seconds, just a cameo role. Emmy Award-winning actress Lynn Whitfield appears sporadically, as does Academy Award nominee Mariel Hemingway. Blink and you'll miss porn star Ron Jeremy. Veteran character actor James Remar pretty much just lies in bed moaning and coughing.

Carmen Electra is 17 years older than the main character, too old to be cast as her rival and contemporary. Electra is also featured on the movie poster for this film, even though her role is a relatively minor one. Perhaps Carter thought that putting her on the poster instead of the unknown Ali Cobrin would make the film a bigger box office draw. Didn't work, and it's dishonest advertising.

Overall, this is a disappointing, lame, tepid movie. I suggest you skip it.

If you're going to make a movie about Lap Dancing, AT LEAST have the common courtesy to hire an actress who seems willing to take her kit off and can, ya know, 'dance'. The female lead here seems to want to maintain her 'purity' when it comes to shedding her togs... Which is great. More power to her. The problem is, in a film about topless ladies writhing around on sweaty men with seductive music playing in the background, it stands out a mile when the main star a) Keeps her lingerie on at all times and b) can't move sexy to save her life. Let's face it... With that front cover, and that title, you expect there to be more flesh on display than the pitiful amount here.

No, the director seems to think we'd be more interested in soapy histrionics, so there are sub plots about our budding exhibitionist's love life going down the crapper due to her new career, and her dad stuck in a hospital bed dying of terminal cancer. Boring, boring, boring. Words cannot express how bland and clichéd this stale material is... Yet the way the director dives into it, you'd think it was Oscar calibre stuff. Talk about deluded. If you're looking for I'll-just put-my-hand-in-my-pocket-for-a-couple-of-hours kind of flick, try your local specialist shop... Or just search online...

If you're after something that deftly combines the heartbreak of a failing relationship, and the loss of a parent into a wonderful tapestry of human emotion for the ages... Man, did you take a wrong turning!! 3/10

The plot is utter crap.

Girl puts boyfriend and her in debt and convinces her boyfriend the only way out is her giving lap dances ummmmmm yay..... :( He should kick her to the curb like you should kick this movie to the curb.

There are so many other ways to empower women but stripping..... really?

I'm going to go rub sand in my eyes now.

OK, it wasn't that bad - I did feel some level of caring for the characters, especially the main two. From what I know of strip clubs and the girls who work in them, the potential "pitfalls" as presented in this film are but a tiny sugar coated fraction of the real perils, which another reviewer here tells accurately. Anyway, maybe keeping it light is a refreshing change, so much in the real world is so dark anyway. I give it a 5.

First of all, why the heck is IMDb giving Briana Evigan, Carmen Electra and Stacey Dash billing over Ali Cobrin? Ali is the star of this movie, followed by Robert Hoffman. Dash is virtually not in it. Maybe she appeared in such a tiny role as a favor to a friend. Evigan and Electra are in it a tad bit more, but not a whole lot.

Anyway, after getting the billing problem out of the way, I'd have to say many parts of this movie are very realistic, such as why Monica decides to take up dancing. I've talked to quite a few dancers some years ago when I was writing a book, and one of my characters was sort of like them. The girls I talked to told me how they started dancing for the most noble of reasons; helping family members with hospital bills, keeping their kids fed and off the streets, etc. "I'll dance for a month until the bills are paid." That month tends to become two and then a year. Many of those girls finally decide to start "tricking" and they get into drugs, and their lives spiral out of control. The movie was also realistic about the deep pitfalls many of those girls go through in their relationships with husbands/boyfriends as their insistence on making more and more money becomes the main priority for them. Without giving away spoilers, I'll say that the ending was not as realistic as the rest of the movie.

The acting was good. Ali Cobrin did a great job in her role. Robert Hoffman was good as her husband, as were the supporting players. The storyline - except for the ending - was believable. I began watching this movie expecting to hate it. I thought it was going to basically be a skin flick with no story. It wasn't, not at all. There is some nudity in it, but not much. Ali Cobrin is completely naked on the bed with a guy, but they go to great lengths not to show anything besides her naked profile and back (no butt in that scene). In another scene, she gets out of bed and walks to the bathroom completely naked showing her butt. In the strip club, some other girls show their breasts. If you're looking for nudity like in Showgirls, forget it.

I gave this a 7-star rating, because - as I said earlier - it's a mostly realistic take on strippers and the pitfalls of that profession. I thought they should have put a bit more grittiness into the film, and the ending could've been done better, but no film's perfect. This was not a film I wanted to see, but it surprised me.