MAGIC MIKE (2012 - ROMANCE / DRAMA) *** out of *****
(It's raining men, allelujah, it's raining men - so drink 'em up, bitches...)
CAST: Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Cody Horn, Matthew McConaughey, Olivia Munn, Joe Manganiello, Matt Bomer, Adam Rodriguez, Kevin Nash.
DIRECTOR: Steven Soderbergh
WARNING: Some SPOILERS and some prime reasons to outlaw chest waxing/shaving - straight ahead.
IT'S LIKE THIS: If you had a dollar for every movie out there with gratuitous female nudity and casual T&A, you would have enough money to make Donald Trump look like some low-income upstart bitch-boy. If, however, you had a dollar for every movie out there with gratuitous male nudity and casual D&B (dick and balls), you'd barely have enough dough to buy yourself a chalupa and a Diet Coke from Taco Bell. Yes, folks... a double-standard clearly exists here. Why do the ladies get to bare it more than the guys onscreen? Thank goodness, then, for our next review. It is titled MAGIC MIKE, and I can assure it's not about a microphone with mystical abilities.
And here's another kicker: it's directed by none other than Mr. Steven Soderbergh. Yes, folks, your read that right. The auteur of such "deep and important" films like SEX LIES AND VIDEOTAPE, SOLARIS, CLOSER, TRAFFIC, and CONTAGION, is also the mastermind behind a "fluff piece" about... male strippers and the existential question of whether or not muscles makes a man masculine. Fuck the muscles - a hairy chest is the mark of masculinity. It's one thing if you were born without a hairy chest. Life hands you lemons - you make a Vodka Sunburst. You roll with it. But if you're born with a hairy chest, you flash that shit like it's a congressional directive. It's simple, guys: chest hair is like "male cleavage". Display it with pride. And please excuse me if I drool all over you. And it is my sad duty to inform you that NONE of the male strippers has a hairy chest. Not. Even. ONE. Which already one strike against the movie.
But I digress. Anyhow, MAGIC MIKE revolves around a guy named, uh, Mike (Channing Tatum), who is equal parts Entrepreneur, Artiste, and Himbo (male bimbo). Mike spends his days roofing the houses of the super-wealthy of some South Florida city, and his nights rubbing his abs and ass against the female population of same - as a male stripper at some placed called X-Tacy or X-Cellent or X-Men or X-Ray or something. Thankfully, he also sets aside all that cash from roofing and rubbing into a nest egg that he plans to use to start a business making art deco furniture that will allow him to retire from the Chippendale's life - and pursue his own creative endeavors. Specifically, making art deco furniture from discarded industrial parts. That's my boy. Oh, and he's in a "no-strings attached" casual fuckfest with a psych grad student named Joanna (Olivia Munn). How much you want to bet she's writing her thesis on "The Psyche Of The American Male Stripper - Oh Who Gives A Shit As Long As He Has A Hot Bod And Knows How To Move It." I know that's what I'd write my thesis on.
Our story begins with Mike meeting an aimless college dropout named Adam (Alex Pettyfer) at his day job. Unfortunately, Adam gets canned from the roofing gig because the foreman catches him stealing a couple of Diet Cokes from the crew fridge (WTF?). Feeling sorry for the young lad, the soft-hearted Mike hooks him up at X-Tacy (or whatever that fucking dance club is called) to clean the toilets and sweep the floor or something. Fortunately, though, Adam is kind of hot and the club owner, Dallas (Matthew McConaughey), who is a retired stripper himself, decides to christen him as... The Kid. Before you know it, Adam is out on the stage, gyrating in his baggy boxers. Well, it's a start, I guess.
The rest of the male stripper family includes: (1) Big Dick Richie (Joe Manganiello), so-named because he's got a standard behemoth Italian schlong (anyone who's slept with an Italian - or thirty of them - will know what I mean); (2) Ken (Matt Bomer), so-named because, well, he's looks a lot like a goddamned Ken doll; (3) Tito (Adam Rodriguez), so-named because he's Hispanic; (4) Tarzan (Kevin Nash), so-named because he's as big as Tarzan and looks like a gorilla; and (5) Dallas (Matthew McConaughey), so-named because he owns the club and is played by Matthew McConaughey. Dallas also has some grandiose plans to open a new club in Miami, where presumably he will hire even more Himbos and Manwhores.
Soon, Mike is introducing Adam to the fast, glamorous life of a Himbo: (1) dancing until the wee hours of the morning, (2) drinking and hanging out with the female clientele afterwards, and (3) jumping off a bridge fully clothed like a dork into the sea. I am not even making up that last part. Actually, it looks fun. Reminds me of last summer when we did some pier-jumping in West Seattle. Of course, we're nowhere near as hot as Mike and Adam. In fact, I think some of the passing kayakers thought we were orcas. It's only when we flashed our middle fingers at them did they realize that we were just a bunch of fatties rolling in the waves.
Anyhow, a little monkey wrench gets thrown into Mike's program when he meets Brooke (Cody Horn), Adam's feisty medical assistant sister. Brooke's one of those cute but square chicks who wouldn't be caught dead in a male strip club, which makes Mike's attraction to her somewhat of a problem. Yes, sir... we've got another one of those cinematic romances wherein two people who would never get on - let alone, get it on - in real life are pushed together - and we're supposed to buy it. Fine. Whatever. Brooke's kind of atypically cute and Mike's got nice abs (or cum gutters, as a friend likes to call them), so I'll play along.
But what happens when all the glitz and stardom starts to go to Adam's head? Will he forget the lessons that Mike taught him? Will the young upstart try to be Top Stripper? And will Mike succeed in his "Escape Plan" of starting a furniture business? Or will other factors prevent him from making the jump? Does he stand a chance with Brooke? Or should he just continue having shallow, meaningless sex with Joanna? What's so wrong with being a male stripper anyway? WHAT!?!
Whew. It's getting hot in here. I need a drink..
BUT, SERIOUSLY: In our review for THE FULL MONTY (review # 84), the wonderful film that was only superficially about male stripping, and more intrinsically about fatherhood and what it means to be a man, we talked about how you could count on one hand the number of films that dealt primarily with the subject of exotic male dancers. In addition to THE FULL MONTY, the only others that come to mind are A NIGHT IN HEAVEN (review coming), the 1983 romance in which an English professor in her 30s discovers that the hottest male stripper at the club her friends drag her to, is also the college student she is flunking in her writing class. While THE FULL MONTY played the male stripping for laughs as evidenced by its obviously out-of-shape heroes, A NIGHT IN HEAVEN went a more romantic route and was a sort of fore-runner to future May-December love stories like CRUSH (review # 167) and HOW STELLA GOT HER GROOVE BACK (review coming). Then there was the trashy but fun TV movie from the mid-90's titled LADYKILLERS, wherein the top male strippers of Los Angeles found themselves the target of a serial killer - and a hunky male detective had to go undercover as a dancer to track down the culprit. Needless to say, despite being a watchable thriller, LADYKILLERS didn't win (or deserve to win) any Emmy awards.
Now we have MAGIC MIKE, and from Steven Soderbergh, no less. Soderbergh is the last person anyone would initially expect to helm a film about the crisis-of-conscience and coming-of-age of a popular male dancer, but when you think about the surprising project choices Soderbergh has made in his career overall (the Femme Bourne wannabe, HAYWIRE; the call girl saga, THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE; the OCEAN's movies), it's not so surprising. Soderbergh has proven himself to be quite the chameleon who defies easy pegging and convenient description. His films have not always been classic or hits, but they have always been interesting. Like the most talented auteurs, Soderbergh is incapable of making a truly bad film. Even his weaker efforts offer rewards.
So where does MAGIC MIKE sit on the continuum of Soderbergh films? A scale where, at the top end, we have SEX LIES AND VIDEOTAPE, TRAFFIC, ERIN BROCKOVICH, OUT OF SIGHT, the OCEAN's films, and at the middle/lower range range we have SOLARIS, CONTAGION, HAYWIRE, THE GIRLFRIEND EXPERIENCE, THE GOOD GERMAN, FULL FRONTAL, and THE LIMEY? Well, quite frankly, MAGIC MIKE can be considered sub-par Soderbergh. But, as I wrote before, Soderbergh's films are always interesting - even if they're ultimately fall short. After all, sub-par Soderbergh is still better than most other directors with their best cinematic foot forward.
MAGIC MIKE benefits and gain mileage from the freshness of its premise. With the exception of the other "male stripper" films mentioned before, there really is a dearth of movies that explore this subject. Another strong factor in the film's favor is Channing Tatum as the lead, "Magic" Mike. As most of us know by now, Tatum started as male stripper when he was 19, before making the leap to modeling, then ultimately to acting. His comfort with the role (and the subject matter) is palpable. He effortlessly dons the skin of this character, turning Mike into an engaging blend of masculinity, kindness, humor, uncertainty, and conviction. Clearly some of Mike's experience is Tatum's own, and he sells the character not just with his star power, but also his ability as an actor. My opinion of Tatum has grown over the years, and he's gradually proven himself to be more than just another handsome face. Without him in the lead role, MAGIC MIKE might've scored lower - even with Soderbergh's skill behind the camera.
As Adam, the "baby Mike," Alex Pettyfer acquits himself very well. The character of Adam is actually quite tricky, because Pettyfer has to play him as an immature, rebellious hothead - without turning him into an unlikable figure. Indeed, during my first viewing of MAGIC MIKE, I was tempted to write Adam off as a jerk - but I realized that would've too simple and easy - and done the character a big disservice. The fact of the matter is Adam is really no different from any young, good-looking man who is suddenly thrown into a glamorous world where he earns a lot of money doing something fun - and is also rewarded by endless female attention. It would take a strong man not too be seduced by that world. You also get the sense that the reason Mike takes Adam under his wing, and ultimately sacrifices a lot for him, has to do with the sense we get that Mike sees a younger version of himself in Adam - and forgives him all his missteps and mistakes because he went through and did the same things himself, before becoming older and wiser.
Indeed, it's the brotherly link between Mike and Adam that gives MAGIC MIKE its emotional push, more so than the ostensible main romantic subplot involving Adam's sister, Brooke (Cody Horn). Horn has an atyical beauty that is like a prism - she can look plain in one angle, and then a second later, from another angle, appear absolutely breathtaking. It's a very unusual quality. She also has a nice, warm rapport with Tatum that comes across in some of their exchanges together. But there is still the issue of some flat delivery of her lines, which mars some scenes. Indeed, she is at her best in non-verbal sequences, such as the scene where she first visits the club - and reacts to the seductive atmosphere around her with an array of expressions that runs the gamut from suspicious and wary, to fascinated and intrigued, to almost seduced. In the end, though, Horn's performance is a little uneven, which hampers the main "romance" part a bit.
Another reason that MAGIC MIKE doesn't rate much higher than *** (above average) is because we never really get a sense of the other male strippers' personalities. Joe Manganiello, Matt Bomer, Andy Rodriguez, and Kevin Nash are all handsome and magnetic, but in the end they are not given any real characters to play. Of the group, only Matthew McConaughey really stands out as the club owner, Dallas. McConaughey has always been a bit of an underrated performer, mainly because he has embraced his "hunk" status and chooses not to throw his intelligence around. With Dallas, though, he has found an ideal role: a guy who is much smarter than he lets on, and uses his beauty to his advantage. Indeed, it's not too farfetched to posit that if Adam is a younger version of Mike, then Dallas is an older version of Mike - essentially, what Mike will become if he doesn't find another way of life soon.
In the end, MAGIC MIKE works best, not as a romance, but as a coming-of-age story. But it's not Adam who discovers his path to manhood - it's his mentor, Mike. By watching Adam get seduced to the dark side, and watching what Dallas has become, Mike realizes what's really important to him, and with his performance here, Channing Tatum shows the actor inside the leading man. Same goes for Alex Pettyfer and Matthew McConaughey - who both take tricky roles and make them work. Ultimately, MAGIC MIKE stands as another interesting and atypical entry into Steven Soderbergh's eclectic body of work.
In closing, it's time to celebrate some inclement weather from the "Weather Girls":
