Monday, July 30, 2012

Magic Mike

Magic Mike - Dir. Steven Soderbergh (2012)


Magic Mike could easily be dismissed as "that male stripper movie." Indeed, the ad campaign seems to sell it as fun times with a beefcake bonanza. The fact that 98% of the audiences I saw attending the screenings opening weekend were female deems the marketing a success. However, don't go in expecting Magic Mike to be a campy, gender-reversed version of Showgirls. The movie is surprisingly deep and a bit of a bummer. You can thank director Steven Soderbergh for bringing a little substance to all the glittery thongs and bare buttocks on display. Magic Mike is the male companion to Soderbergh's The Girlfriend Experience with a dash of Flashdance and Boogie Nights thrown in for good measure.

The titular Magic Mike is played by Channing Tatum, who was inspired to make the film by his time working as a male stripper after dropping out of college. The screenplay was written by his producing partner Reid Carolin.

By day, Mike is a part-time construction worker and owns an auto detailing van though we never see him do any of the latter. At night, he is the star attraction at Xquisite, located in the heart of the bustling nightclub scene of Tampa, Florida. Mike doesn't want to strip forever. He has aspirations of running a custom furniture business. He crafts tables from the flotsam and jetsam that wash up on the beach. That encapsulates one of the primary themes in Magic Mike, finding a purpose for the unwanted debris of society. Right on cue, Mike meets Adam (Alex Pettyfer), a college dropout sleeping on his sister's couch. Adam blew a football scholarship after punching out his coach and gets fired on the first day by the foreman. Safe to say, he has impulse control issues.

Mike takes Adam under his wing and nicknames him, "The Kid," where he joins a small cast of well-toned studs that includes Big Dick Richie (Joe Manganiello), Tito (CSI: Miami's Adam Rodriguez), Ken the living doll (Matt Bomer), and former dancer turned emcee Dallas (Matthew McConaughey). As Adam descends deeper into his hedonistic lifestyle, Mike finds potential for a fresh start and a pure romance with Adam's sister, Brooke (Cody Horn).

Magic Mike is a lot more thoughtful than the ad campaign would have you believe. Yes, there is a lot of flesh with Tatum dancing up a storm and dusting off his Step Up moves. The club isn't a normal strip club, but a dance revue where the men perform elaborate skits dressed as firemen, sailors, soldiers, and cowboys. Yes, there is the obligatory number set to "It's Raining Men." Surprisingly, the film has more female nudity than male as we get a Tatum butt shot within minutes quickly followed by a topless Olivia Munn.

The story is steeped in the current zeitgeist of country's economic fallout. This theme is never more apparent than a scene in which Mike fails to secure a small business loan (he's considered distressed) from a bank representative played by Breaking Bad's Betsy Brandt. Mike rifles off a great comeback line, "I watch the news. Ya'll are the ones who are distressed." Magic Mike shares similarities with The Wrestler in that both feature protagonists selling their bodies to survive. While Randy the Ram destroys his for the entertainment of the fans, Mike must keep his in pristine condition. The comparisons go further when you note that one of the strippers is Kevin Nash, a 7ft. tall former professional wrestler. Nash is in his fifties and has two bad knees due to a litany of injuries. In the movie, he is Tarzan and dances in a loincloth with an obvious leg brace because he doesn't know how to do anything else. He's the cautionary tale, the road where Mike may be headed.

Mike himself is played with easy-going charm by Channing Tatum, who has never been considered one of today's great thespians. But, Soderbergh knows how to utilize his actors within their own limitations. He made Gina Carano into a believable action star through stoicism and a terse amount of dialogue. In The Girlfriend Experience, he had porn star Sasha Grey exude a cold detachment that could have been a wooden performance in any other movie. In Magic Mike, he lets Tatum be himself, a loveable lug who sometimes stumbles over his own words. Tatum's scenes with Cody Horn are some of the film's best. When Soderbergh keeps the camera at a distance, he makes it feel as if the audience is eavesdropping on a pair of young lovers. The reviews of Horn's performance are all over the map. A few critics have bashed her for being cardboard or that she only got the job because her father, Alan Horn, chairman of Walt Disney Studios and former president of Warner Bros, who produced Magic Mike. I choose to give her a thumbs up. Just like Tatum, Horn gives a naturalistic performance. You cannot say the same for Alex Pettyfer, who lacks the charisma and presence of his co-stars, particularly Matthew McConaughey. The handsome actor with the trademark Texas drawl has undergone a career resurgence. No longer content with doing crappy romantic comedies with Kate Hudson, McConaughey has taken on daring low-budget projects with directors such as Soderbergh, Richard Linklater (Bernie), Jeff Nichols (Mud), Lee Daniels (The Paperboy), and William Friedkin (Killer Joe). He exudes McConaughey-ness in the role of Dallas and draws your attention whenever he is on screen, not just because of his shiny washboard abs. There's also a hint of a dark side to his character, someone who isn't above exploiting his employees.

Soderbergh gives everyone a unique look. He takes the nocturnal world of the Tampa club scene and washes it with an orange and yellow glow. During a scene where Mike and Adam attempt to snare a couple girls to their club, Soderbergh shoots it from a high angle long shot where they are just a few bodies in teeming sea of humanity. He then flips it to a closer low angle where the girls are hooked and they are now the only people in the world. Another memorable shot is of Big Dick's namesake appendage being fluffed by a pump, which is in the foreground corner of the screen and slightly out of focus with Adam in the center background staring quizzically at it.

Magic Mike isn't an entirely original story. It's a tried and true cautionary tale of show business with all the requisite dangers of sex, drugs, and backstage drama. But, the cast is superb and Soderbergh gives it his unique stamp.

Rating: *** ½ (*****)

No comments: