This sleazy, stupid movie mixes soft pornography with the clichés of backstage dramas. Violent over-acting, jaw-droppingly bad dialogue, and plot stitched together from every rejected script in Hollywood have made this film a cult classic but its greatest fans have to be 12 year old boys. Joe Eszterhas was well overpaid ($2 million!) for writing this magnificently bad howler, and director Paul Verhoeven (Basic Instinct) should have known better too.

Sadly, we get to see the birth and death of an acting career all in one film. Elizabeth Berkley (Saved by the Bell) deserved a better fate than this, although the agent that recommended the film to her probably should rot in Hell for all eternity.

She plays Nomi, a drifter who hitches a ride to Las Vegas, becomes a lap dancer and then a performer, and discovers--gasp!--there's a whole world of sex and violence involved with these things. This might have been just another young-girl-follows-her-dreams-to-the-big-city-only-to-lose-everything-yet-discover-her-true-self story, but through their "efforts" Eszterhas and Verhoeven have ensured that "Showgirls" is enshrined as the most memorable, er, bust, of all time.

Others have defended this film as a brilliant satire of American culture but the battery of ludicrous sex scenes, flailing pudenda, and languorous lesbian kisses give the game away: perhaps the crowning achievement of the Hollywood erotic-thriller sub-genre, "Showgirls" unwittingly exposes it for what it always was - an excuse to fill the screen with a few dozen pair of admittedly shapely and extremely well-lit breasts.

Gina Gershon (Bound) is probably the best element in the film, playing Berkley's bisexual rival for the big spotlight on stage. She captures well the amoral attitude of an about-to-be-over-the-hill starlet, but even she gets caught chewing the scenery in her big hospital scene.

Kyle MacLaughlin (Twin Peaks, Dune, Sex and the City) tries hard in his role as the sleazy club promotor and love interest for Berkeley and Gershon, but he is equally overwhelmed by the horrible material. At least he had a career beforehand to fall back on.

So, why did Esterhaus select Elizabeth Berkley for the lead? The answer is beyond my comprehension, unless every other of the 5000 young starlets eager to star in a movie -any movie!- had turned him down flat. Anyone who has been to a Vegas show knows that Berkeley is PHYSICALLY not up to the role: no one in Las Vegas whould ever hire someone with such a small chest and weak dancing ability. The acting requirements also overwhelm her and it is painful watching her often just reading her lines. But for that I also blame the writer for giving her awful dialog and the director who obviously had her play her role that way. Casting a total unknown would have been an all-around better choice for this kind of film, and as it turned out, it would have been far better also for Berkeley's career.

When Goldie Hawn recommended Elizabeth Berkley for a small role in First Wives Club, she publicly stated that Berkley deserved the opportunity "to redeem herself after starring in the ridiculous Showgirls." That says it all.

The only thing stopping me from giving it a no-star rating is the movie's unabashed use of nudity. The scenes in the dressing rooms are unashamed, with no hint of pixilation. There are no cutesy camera angles, nor cutaway shots to rustling trees or crashing waves. As bad as everything else may be about the movie at least Esterhaus gives us realistic backstage setting.

In truth, I've seen worse acting and worse movies, but one has to go to late night X-rated cable to find it.