| Director | Andrew Bergman |
|---|---|
| Genre | comedy drama, drama film, erotic film, film based on literature, sex comedy |
| Runtime | 113 min |
| Country | United States |
| Budget | $50 million |
| Box office | $113.3 million |
Former FBI secretary Erin Grant loses custody of her seven-year-old daughter Angela to her ex-husband Darrell. She had lost her job due to his arrest record as a drug addict and dealer. To obtain the $15,000 needed to afford an appeal to recover her, Erin becomes a stripper at the Eager Beaver strip club in Miami. She attempts to find out where Darrell is from his older sister Rita, as he has again relocated without informing Erin. He uses Angela to steal wheelchairs from hospitals to sell them on the black market.
Congressman David Lane Dilbeck, representing Florida's 5th congressional district, visits the club and becomes infatuated with Erin. Aware of his embarrassing indulgences, patron Jerry Killian approaches her with a plan to manipulate Dilbeck to settle the custody dispute in her favor.
However, as Dilbeck is the chairman of the subcommittee on sugar, he has powerful business connections. These include lobbyist Malcolm J. Moldowsky, his righthand man, and father-and-son sugar barons Willie and Chris Rojo, whose price supports are worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Consequently, those who could potentially humiliate him in an election are murdered.
Attorney Alan Mordecai has photos of a drunk Dilbeck assaulting fellow patron Paul Guber, his client, so he invites the club’s bouncer and head of security Shad to help him blackmail Dilbeck. Meanwhile, Jerry is found dead in Lake Okeechobee while Miami Police Department Lieutenant Al Garcia is on vacation there with his wife Donna and son Andy. An autopsy reveals that he was drowned in tap water before being discarded in the lake.
Finding photos of Erin all over Jerry's apartment, Garcia ventures to the Eager Beaver. There, she explains her current dilemma and asks him to ensure that the Dade County police department drops Darrell as an informant for the vice squad. This way, during her appeal, he can be exposed as a criminal. Fully sympathetic to her plight, he complies.
However, the judge overseeing Erin's civil court case, L.W. Fingerhut, suffers a fatal heart attack, which delays her appeal by six months. To protect Angela, Erin retrieves her from Rita's care, Darrell having previously let slip that Rita looks after Angela on Fridays.
Mordecai approaches Dilbeck with the Eager Beaver blackmail photo, agitating Malcolm further. After Erin takes Angela with her to work, Darrell ambushes her at knifepoint in her car outside the club, but Shad breaks his arm once he appears to rescue her. After Erin finishes her shift, Garcia arrives, shows her the blackmail photo and tells her to contact him if she is threatened, now fully aware why Jerry was murdered.
Dilbeck's personal interest in Erin persists, so she is invited to perform privately for him. He asks her to become his lover and later his wife, despite his staff becoming increasingly concerned. Malcolm threatens Erin with putting Angela in state care if she talks about Dilbeck to anyone.
Eventually, Mordecai turns up dead, increasing Garcia's concern for her. Dilbeck and Malcolm debate whether to kill Erin or simply silence her by threatening to take away her daughter. However, Erin, suspecting Dilbeck's complicity in the murders, concocts a plan to trap him.
Malcolm, aware of Erin's contact with Garcia and her FBI background, suggests Dilbeck invite Erin for another private show, planning to kill her afterwards. She goes alone, but an intoxicated Darrell arrives and assaults Malcolm. Darrell then interrupts the dance, allowing Erin to retrieve a gun and force him and Dilbeck to go to the nearby Belle Glade sugar refinery. There she has invited TV crews for a news conference.
En route, Erin forces Darrell to write a note releasing custody of Angela to her and, once there, tricks Dilbeck into confessing to the murders on tape. As Malcolm arrives, Garcia serendipitously appears along with the news crew and Dilbeck is soon after arrested. Erin, having regained full guardianship of Angela, thanks Garcia and Shad for assisting her and jokingly expresses interest in Garcia running for Congress as Dilbeck's replacement.