Magic Mike is a 2012 drama about a male strip club and a few of the men who try to make a living dancing for money.
THE STORY: In Tampa, Mike (Channing Tatum) is getting by through a series of odd jobs, working construction, holding on to a dream of making custom furniture (made from scrap washed ashore – it’s actually quite nice). To pay the bills ’til then, he’s put six years in at a regular gig where he’s literally giving the shirt off his back. Strippers do that. One of the most popular dancers, he been shakin’ his thing at the Xquisite Strip Club for a go-getter boss named Dallas (Matthew McConaughey) who’s aiming to franchise in Miami. Meanwhile, up on a roof one day, Mike meets 19-year-old Adam (Alex Pettyfer), a college dropout with little direction who gets a sudden shot on stage as a dancer and soon enough, he’s up to his neck in the reckless lifestyle. Sex and drugs lead him into hard times and his sister Brooke (Cody Horn) looks to Mike to protect him, even has Mike starts to fall for her.
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Writer: Reid Carolin
Stars: Channing Tatum, Alex Pettyfer, Olivia Munn
THE RUNDOWN: Based partially on the real life experiences of Tatum before he became an actor, the film earned critical praise for its screenplay and performances, especially McConaughey who walked away with the most buzz, a powerful presence that set the tone for most of the film. Far from a sleazy beefcake show (which it has plenty of), the movie is much more grounded and personal than it would seem with loads of intelligent dialogue and very adult themes, from struggling to stay afloat, to trying to chase your dreams, to losing sight of your way. This is Showgirls done right. But with men.
While Matthew McConaughey earns a lot of praise for his work, it’s Tatum’s effortless authenticity to the project that keeps this so impactful. It’s some of his best work.
It’s an obvious retread of countless other ‘struggle for a dream’ stories, though its setting may be unique, and can feel a little predictable as it dances its way to the finale.
THAT MOMENT IN: Adam was a football hero in high school, earning a full scholarship to college, but we learn that on day one, hour one on this university team, he got into a fight with his coach and lost it all. Since then, he’s been drifting, living with his hard-working sister, who can’t seem to get him motivated.
Mike feels kinda sorry for the kid and one night, gets him into a dance club, and after he sees some potential in the good-looking guy to round up girls to come to the show, brings him to Xquisite to watch the show. He introduces him to Dallas who lets him work for a night as a prop boy, sticking backstage to help the dancers. That all goes well enough until a few hours into the show, one of the acts can’t get on stage, being drunk on the backstage floor. Thinking fast, as a full crowd of hyped-up women are screaming for action, Mike throws Adam onto the stage and tells him to take off his clothes. Talk about do or die.
Wildly unprepared, the kid starts to strip … like he’s getting ready for a shower. The guys has zero moves. However, the women – still jacked up from the other dancers – respond, and once in his briefs, he walks off the front of the stage and does a little one-to-one with a girl in the audience (one he picked up earlier at a club). The crowd goes crazy and watching from afar, Dallas sees potential. The boy could be big.
He tells Adam to show up for practice at the studio and so we cut to the next day and find ourselves in a mirrored room where a few of the strippers are working out their routines and Dallas takes to mentoring Adam. Dallas is in a skin-tight yellow tank top, a leather flame-motiff bandana, and biker shorts.
It is here where Dallas makes it clear that his club is for professionals and that when you are on stage in front of pumped up women, you’ve got to put on a show. He brings Adam to a mirror and demonstrates what he’s talking about, how removing clothes is all about timing and triggers, that you’ve got to find the moment when to strike, meaning when to use them hips and make it count. He gyrates and pulsates and thrusts before having Adam do the same, getting in right behind him like he’s teaching the kid how to play billiards. Very sexy billiards. Time for the boy to learn.
WHY IT MATTERS: Ever see a Rocky movie? Heck, have you ever seen a sports film? Pick one and you most likely will find a moment when a coach or a veteran will take the rookie aside and give them that one short talk or tip that helps the star turn the corner. It’s one of the best parts of these kinds of movies.
Director Steven Soderbergh recognizes this and in a clever and almost parodic way gives it the male stripper spin. Sure, you probably remember a similar moment in Demi Moore‘s weirdly watchable Striptease when she learns the ropes from the girls in the club, but here’s it’s much more inline with the sports drama as Dallas fires up his recruit with all kinds of job jargon and physicality. This is a man deadly serious about the effects of a hip twist.
When Adam begins to practice taking off his clothes, Dallas initially chastises him for being like a twelve-year-old in a locker room. He then heads to the mirror to show the kid how it’s done, and it’s right here where Dallas plays with us, the audience, looking right into the camera via the mirror, pivoting on his bent legs in a seductive dance. His point is made, that this is about the tease, that the men are a fantasy, the power of the women’s imagination turning them into anything the ladies want. It’s not just stripping, he explains, they’re dream makers and for that short time on stage, it’s up to them to fulfill, being the hunk they never had the chance to be with. At one point, while he leans into the dance and breathes heavy, he tells the kid he has to make the women all believe that he is inside every single one of them. Damn.
This scene alone is reason enough to watch as McConaughey absolutely blisters with intensity, but it’s the terrific way that Soderbergh mixes that with a kind of playful spoofing, giving the whole scene a wicked sizzle, like, we know it’s not meant to be taken seriously … but, yeah, it most definitely should be.
So yes, I love the way this riffs on the Rocky spirit, but even more so when compared with that equally powerful moment in Creed (2015) when Rocky uses a mirror in a training sequence to inspire Adonis. Was Ryan Coogler watching Magic Mike?
A male stripping movie would seem to be for a very particular audience and indeed, as such things are tracked, on opening 73% of ticket-buyers were women. However, with a guy like Soderbergh behind the camera (he’s behind titles like Sex, Lies, and Videotape and the Ocean’s Eleven franchise), you can be sure there is a whole lot more to take from Magic Mike than what it seems. If you haven’t seen it, check it out and pay attention to a great scene when a mentor shows a novice how to do it right. It’s a great cinematic moment.