Former FBI secretary Erin Grant (Demi Moore) loses custody of her young daughter Angela (Rumer Willis) to her ex-husband Darrell (Robert Patrick), a criminal who cost Erin her job (as Darell was a drug addict and dealt in illegal drugs). To afford an appeal to get her daughter back, Erin becomes a stripper at the Eager Beaver, a strip club in Miami. Erin has been working there for 8 weeks and needs to come up $15k in 6 weeks to appeal her daughter's custody decision.Meanwhile Darrell has moved without informing Erin and is using Angela to steal hospital medical supplies and selling them on the black market. Rita (Siobhan Fallon Hogan) is Darell's brother and Erin tries to find out from her where he has moved to. Shad (Ving Rhames) is a bouncer at the club and looks out for Erin.A Congressman named David Dilbeck (Burt Reynolds) visits the club and becomes infatuated with Erin. Aware of Dilbeck's embarrassing indulgences, another Eager Beaver patron Jerry (Orly) approaches Erin with a plan to manipulate the congressman to settle the custody battle and help her get Angela back. However, Dilbeck has powerful business connections including, Malcolm Moldowsky (Paul Guilfoyle) who want to ensure he remains in office. Consequently, those who can embarrass him (including Jerry, who contacted Malcolm to blackmail Dilbeck) in an election are murdered.Alan Mordecai (Stuart Pankin) is shad's lawyer and has acquired photos of the night when Dilbeck got drunk at the eager beaver and assault a fellow patron while lusting after Erin. He wants Shad to join him in a scheme to blackmail Dilbeck.Meanwhile police officer Al Garcia (Armand Assante) has fished out Jerry's body from a lake and autopsy has revealed that he was drowned in tap water first before being thrown into the lake. It was murder. Jerry had Erin's photos all over his apartment and that's how Al finds Erin at the Eager Beaver and understands her full situation. Erin wants Al to make sure that Miami PD dumps Darrell as an informant, so that during her appeal he doesn't have any protection from the police department and can be exposed for the criminal he is. Al gets Darrell dropped, but the judge overseeing Erin's case has a heart attack and her appeal is delayed by 6 months.Erin retrieves her daughter from Darrell's negligent care (she found Darrell's address from mail stolen from Rita)..Alan approaches Dilbeck with the picture from the Eager Beaver and Malcolm is worried. Erin takes Angela to work and sees Erin dancing on stage, topless. Darrell attacks Erin outside the club, but is saved by Shad, who breaks Darrell's hand. Angela tells Erin that she looked pretty dancing on stage. Al Garcia meets Erin and tells him that Congressman Dilbeck has a crush on her and shows her the photo being used for his blackmail. Al wants Erin to contact him if Dilbeck is in touch with her.Dilbeck's personal interest in Erin persists, and she is invited to perform privately for him. He asks her to become his lover and later his wife, despite his staff's concerns that she knows too much. Malcolm threatens Erin that he knows that Angela is with Erin illegally and will put Angela in state care if Erin talks about Dilbeck to anyone. eventually, Alan turns up dead as well and Al is now worried about Erin.However, Erin and a police officer Al Garcia (Armand Assante) begin to suspect the congressman's guilt in the murders, and Erin concocts a plan to bring the congressman to justice. But she doesn't know that Malcolm knows that Al is in touch with her (& that she is ex-FBI). He gets Dilbeck to invite Erin for another private show and plans to kill her just after.Erin goes for the private dance without Al or Shad. But Darrell intervenes who hits Malcolm. But he is hopelessly drunk, and Erin takes him and Dilbeck to a yard with the pretense of having sex with Dilbeck. There she gets Dilbeck to confess to the murders and gets Darrell to sign a paper releasing custody of Angela to her. As Malcolm arrives, Al gets there just in time to save everyone.Thus, Erin regains full custody of Angela, quits stripping, and gets back her job in the FBI. Darrell returns to prison after he is convicted of his crimes.