Pathetic characters on the edge of despair

Film review: Magic Mike

MANILA, Philippines - Channing Tatum is the guy of the moment. He is sweet in The Vow; funny, 21 Jump Street; a sensitive actor, A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints; a great dancer, Step Up; and as we found out most recently, he also strips and looks great doing it, Magic Mike. Tatum plays a stripper of the title in Magic Mike. He displays his pecs and abs and even behind in the picture. It is the latter that is being talked about and watched. I must add, a lot.

We know of females who generated box-office bonanzas because of their extraordinary physical assets, like the classic sex symbols, Marilyn Monroe and Raquel Welch in the past or the more recent variety, Angelina Jolie and Scarlett Johansson. But this must be the first time when moviegoers are watching a picture because a guy is showing off not his biceps as is usual with male stars, but his buns.

There are plenty of those in the picture. Aside from Tatum, there is Alex Pettyfer of Beastly and I Am Number Four as The Kid, the newbie to the stripping business. There is Joe Manganiello, the werewolf Alcide of the TV series True Blood as the ladies’ man Big Dick Richie. Adam Rodriguez of C.S.I. Miami as Tito, Matt Bomer, that great looker in White Collar as Ken and wrestler Kevin Nash as Tarzan.

Plus Matthew McConaughey, yes, the 40-something McConaughey of Dazed And Confused and The Lincoln Lawyer, also gets to strut his butt and more as M.C. Dallas, the aging bossman of the all-male revue, the Cock Block Kings of Tampa, and owner of the Xquisite. And I am happy to inform you that he still has all the requirements of the trade in excellent form.

Magic Mike tells the story of Mike, who has some daytime jobs, roof tiler and carpenter among others and at night is the star dancer at the Xquisite, a club that caters to females who enjoy watching near-naked men dance. Mike takes under his wing a college dropout Adam played by Pettyfer and introduces him to dancing for the money. But while Mike is intent on making enough money to open his own furniture business, the impressionable Alex gets dazzled by the rampant drug use and easy sex that comes with the stripper’s lifestyle.

While funny at the onset, the theme of men using their bodies to earn a living is never pretty. More so in the case of Magic Mike because it is the Academy Award-winning Steven Sodenberg at the helm. This guy has done fun films like the Oceans Eleven, Twelve and Thirteen but he has also taken on unsettling subjects like Sex, Lies and Videotape, Erin Brockovich and Traffic. Magic Mike is obviously being sold like the first batch, a fun romp but is actually closer to the latter in treatment.

The movie is about pathetic characters living on the edge of despair. This is seen in the drug addict falling asleep on his vomit. This is in how a stripper carefully saves the sticky dollar bills that females insert in his thong undies. This is in how the aging dancer continues to delude himself about one day having his own club while enticing the younger men to stay and dance so he can attain his dream. So go guys, dance to Madonna’s Like A Virgin and make daddy Dallas happy.

So while Sodenberg starts things off to a happy start, it is indeed “raining men,” it soon dawns on the audience that he has fooled them into watching a backstage drama about newcomers and fading stars and men using other men for their own ends. Everybody is sinking into the depths and the suspense that builds is about, who among the characters will survive the descent. This is not in the same league as Erin or Traffic but definitely worth watching.

Hopefully, the real-life Adams and Mike’s out there will survive the plunge of their fun but undeniably demeaning career. I am sure that Tatum and Pettyfer and all the other guys who stripped here will and we will see more of them on the big screen. The biggest survivor from this batch though is no other but McConaughey.

This is his Stacee Jaxx moment. Tom Cruise took a big risk playing the aging rocker Jaxx of Rock Of Ages and flopped. McConaughey also took a big risk as an aging stripper with Magic Mike and masterfully floated to the top. That scene where he is briefing the giggly audience about the do’s and don’t’s while watching a strip show is one for the books. And he also gets to sing.