Directed by: Steven Soderbergh.
Written by: Reid Carolin.
Starring: Channing Tatum (Magic Mike), Matthew McConaughey (Dallas), Alex Pettyfer (Adam), Cody Horn (Brooke), Olivia Munn (Joanna), Joe Manganiello (Big Dick Richie), Matt Bomer (Ken), Adam Rodriguez (Tito), Kevin Nash (Tarzan), Gabriel Iglesias (Tobias)
Steven Soderbergh’s Magic
Mike has been sold as a fun ride – kind of a bachelorette party of a movie.
While I doubt that many women going to see the movie for the prospect of
scantily clad, hot men dancing around will be disappointed by it – Magic Mike
goes far beyond what the trailers are promising. The film reminded me of one of
Soderbergh’s lesser seen efforts – The Girlfriend Experience – starring real
life porn star Sasha Grey as a high class prostitute. Both films look at the
sex industry more as a business than a source for titillation – but for what it
is, a business. There is still a lot of fun to be had in the movie, and it is
an interesting character study and romance as well.
The movie stars Channing
Tatum, drawing from his own experience as a male stripper years ago, as Magic
Mike. Mike sees himself as an entrepreneur – he runs a mobile car detailing
business, along with a roofing business, and on weekends, works for Dallas (Matthew
McConaughey) as a male stripper, out of a bar that Dallas rents out. Dallas has
big plans – he’s going to raise enough money to open a real strip club, so they
can get out of the low rent Tampa, and move to the more upscale Miami. Magic
Mike is his biggest draw – and he is offering him equity in the new club. Mike
does all of this because he has a bigger dream – to design costume furniture.
Mike meets Adam (Alex Pettyfer), a 19 year old kid, recently thrown out of
college because of his problems with authority, and brings him along to the
club one day – where he becomes a hit. Dallas now has another star. There
nights are a blur of partying, alcohol and sex – an atmosphere that Dallas
encourages. Mike tries to keep things in context – something Adam cannot do,
much of the chagrin of his worrying sister Brooke (Cody Horn) – who is also
drawn to Mike.
You have to give Soderbergh
a lot of credit for this movie – he sticks by his instincts all the way
through. Soderbergh, who was recently fired from two movies (Moneyball and The
Man from U.N.C.L.E.) because his style clashed with what the producers wanted.
While it would be easy for him to make something shallow and breezy – a sure
fire audience hit (he’s done it enough in the past), Magic Mike keeps his stylistic
tics, that I personally love, but has turned off some viewers from his movies. Although
this is a movie that takes place in flashy clubs and on the beach, and for the
first half of the movie seems like one big, long party, Soderbergh shoots the
movie mainly in a dark, sepia-tone, suggesting the darkness to come in the
story. Like Boogie Nights, this is a movie set in the sex industry where
everything is fun and games, right up until it isn’t. It’s great to have fun
when money is being made – but when something threatens that money, the fun is
over.
The heart of this angle of
the movie, as the sex industry as a real industry, is seen through Matthew
McConaughey’s performance as Dallas – which (and I cannot believe I’m saying
this) deserves consideration for a Best Supporting Actor nomination. I have
often accused McConaughey’s persona, cultivated through countless, awful
romantic comedies, as being shallow, and superficial. McConaughey’s performance
here plays off that image brilliantly. When we first meet his Dallas, it seems
like it’s going to be another of those McConaughey performance where he coasts
by on his easy charm, with that slow, sexy Southern drawl of his. But watch the
scene where Mike challenges him on what his equity share in the new club will
be – and see how instantly Dallas changes, and that darkness comes out. He is
really little more than a pimp – exploiting his “employees” for their bodies,
and who will instantly discard when they lose their value (see his final scene
in the movie for how quickly he can change gears in this regard). McConaughey’s
performance here suggests what I have long said about him – that what he shows
to the world is nothing more than a mask. He wants his “boys” to have a good
time – to get drunk, get high and sleep with as many women as they can. That
keeps that happy, which keeps them docile. But don’t cross him.
Channing Tatum is also
wonderful in the title role. He`s having a great year so far, having a hit in
the romantic drama The Vow (which remains unseen by me), and an even bigger hit
with 21 Jump Street – where he proved himself to be a gifted comedic actor. Now
comes the best work of his career as Magic Mike. You get the since that he was
once `The Kid`, and like Adam, he bought into the whole lifestyle – and enjoyed
it. But sooner or later, he realizes the emptiness of it all – and this is
where the two main female roles come in. First, there is the small role played
by Olivia Munn, a psychology student, who uses Mike for sex, but who Mike
thinks there may be something more there. Munn eventually teaches Mike a hard
lesson on how he is perceived by women. Then there is newcomer Cody Horn, as
Adam`s sister, who likes Mike, but wishes he was more normal. The two have an
easy chemistry together, and Horn is quite good in the role, even though it is
a fairly standard one – as ``The Girl` who finally makes the hero see the
light.
If all of this makes Magic
Mike sound like a serious movie, it is because Magic Mike is a serious movie.
Yet that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot of fun along the way – and yes, to the
women who want to see Tatum and the other hot male dancers prance around the
stage in next to nothing, you will not be disappointed. The dances are actually
quite well choreographed and danced by the stars –who are not interchangeable hard
bodies, but whose personality comes out during those dances. Unlike the female
strippers I have seen in the movies, there really does seem to be a lot of
thought that goes into these dances – there are more about seduction than
nudity. If the movie had just been about the stripping, it may well have been a
guilty pleasure for women and not much more. But it`s because Soderbergh and
company take it so seriously that makes it one of the best Hollywood films of
the summer so far.
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