There’s a reason why the Chippendales are seen more as a punchline than something truly provocative – fulfilling a different role to their female counterparts, male strippers are steeped in too much fun, fake tan and cartoonish self-esteem to be enjoyed as anything but a giddy joke. This is highlighted in the marketing of Magic Mike, which has succeeded in attracting an audience composed almost entirely of hyper girls on a night out.
Steven Soderberg’s film has a lot more going on under the sequined thongs than Viagra and elastic bands but unfortunately the director doesn’t know what to do with it. Amidst the Step Up: After Dark-style dance routines, the romantic subplots and the many, many shots of oiled-up, topless men, there are brief flashes of raw, naked (steady now) emotional truths. But Soderberg isn’t baring all, and it’s to Magic Mike’s detriment.
As the eponymous Mike, Channing Tatum impresses as a stripper who’s been enjoying the women and money too much to realise that he’s been doing it too long. Boss Matthew McConaughey, once the embodiment of the dream, now becomes the cautionary tale, living in a constant state of money-counting undress, without any friends or family to laugh at his machismo-laden one-liners. As amber-steeped cinematography is abandoned for siren-like glares of red and blue during drug-fuelled nights of hedonism, Soderberg portrays the empty seediness of Mike’s lifestyle. And as Tatum struggles to convince both himself and his love interest (Cody Horn, bland) that he and his job are not the same thing, you can see why neither seem convinced by his argument.
However, it’s a dichotomy Soderberg doesn’t resolve. Tatum and Horn’s relationship lacks the depth needed to convince, while the cheesy comedy of the strip club and serious, dramatic sleaziness of the after-parties fail to gel either tonally or stylistically. Lacking the confidence or conviction of a serious, affecting drama and choosing to lessen its impact with corny comedy, Magic Mike is yet another example of Soderberg’s long-running problem with performance anxiety.