Ah, what to watch this summer? The millionth superhero remake? A cartoon franchise? An action film with stars from the 80s and 90s? Or a male stripper gyrating in front of howling women? They all sound terrible, but that last one happens to be just the opposite.
Magic Mike is inspired by Channing Tatum’s real life, before his Hollywood career took off with brainless dance flicks. Mike (Tatum) is a construction worker who takes new coworker Adam (Alex Pettyfer) under his wing. The 19-year-old noob is fired on his first day on the job and Mike ends up coaching him into becoming a stripper at a club run by an (almost) retired stripper named Dallas (a wonderfully slimy Matthew McConaughey). Despite his initial reticence, Adam is quickly drawn into this world of partying, picking up women and making easy money.
Adam’s is a story of initiation into the dark underbelly of nightlife, with all the drug-dealing mafia and sexual appetite you’d expect from this kind of genre. But at least the drifting sex objects are, for once, men. And then there’s Mike’s story, which has a bit more heft, given that it touches on the broken American dream. He wants to make handcrafted furniture, but society somehow keeps him doing what it really wants from him: sexy entertainment. The resulting movie is both fun and interesting, somehow steering clear of Hollywood clichés.
With this film, Soderbergh continues to explore his post-Clooney commitment to working with less popular actors. And honestly, we don’t think Tatum or Pettyfer will pick up any Golden Globes for their thong-clad gyrations. But Magic Mike shows that Soderbergh’s story-telling skills are intact. To take such a sketchy idea, bring it some depth, and keep the party rocking, now that’s the kind of sexy summer blockbuster we want to get our hands on.