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 (*****)
