SHOWGIRLS (1995)

SHOWGIRLS (NC-17) It has the distinction of striving to be everything a lot of people are going to hate it for. The dialogue, by Joe Eszterhas, comes ripping off the screen like a series of insults from a dirty nightclub comic, and director Paul Verhoeven uses his camera like a priapic weapon. Together, these two inflate the story of Nomi (Elizabeth Berkley), a troubled young woman rising to the top of the Las Vegas strip world, into a spectacularly trashy movie of the week, a schlock All About Eve in fishnets. For all that, there's no denying that Showgirls, with its nudity, its camp obscenities, and its genuinely dirty dancing, goes over the edge into mean, tawdry exhibitionism in a way that a ''salacious'' TV movie never quite can. As Nomi, Elizabeth Berkley has exactly two emotions -- hot and bothered -- but her party-doll blowsiness works for the picture. C+