Has Soderbergh lost his magic?

FILM REVIEW

Magic Mike
DIRECTED BY: Steven Soderbergh
STARRING: Channing Tatum, Matthew McConaughey, Alex Pettyfer, Olivia Munn, Cody Horn
CERT: 16

In Magic Mike, Channing Tatum takes his clothes off quite a lot. Usually he is moving his finely-tuned physique in a very suggestive manner while in this state of advanced undress. Matthew McConaughey and a bunch of other strapping gentlemen do likewise, on a fairly regular basis.
That’s the reason most people will willingly go to see the film. The only exceptions are those who are lying and perhaps those who have developed a sudden, keen interest in dance. Like my wife, who would never lie and who enthusiastically observed that Channing Tatum really is a good dancer.
I believe she described his moves as “unreal”, but I might have misheard because she was gasping at the time and seemed to be on the brink of passing out.
For the rest of us, with no interest in Mr Tatum’s gyrations, there’s the slim hope that director Steven Soderbergh (Out of Sight, Traffic) has finally gone and made another great movie. Alas he hasn’t, but for a while at least, Magic Mike has enough going for it to keep you entertained if you happen to find yourself dragged along.
Mike (Tatum) wastes no time establishing himself. He likes the ladies – the more the merrier – and doesn’t worry greatly about names. He works as a roofer, he has plans to be a furniture designer and on the weekends he makes handy money at Club Xquisite in Tampa, stripping for the screaming hordes as the main attraction in a male dance troupe led by club owner and shady entrepreneur Dallas (McConaughey).
On the building site one day, Mike meets Adam (Pettyfer), a feckless young drifter living on his sister’s couch and in need of a lift home. Later, Mike does the boy another big favour and, by the end of the evening, Adam has a new name and a burgeoning career as a stripper. He’s also full of free drink and he even gets the girl. You know, one of those boring nights.
In the morning, Adam introduces Mike to his sister Brooke (Horn), a fine young medical assistant who might be a tad more pleasant company if she wasn’t such a cold fish, a nagging mammy whose default expression is a look of grave disapproval. She particularly disapproves of her brother’s mad new line of work and holds Mike personally responsible for the young lad’s welfare. But hey, somehow Mike still likes her.
Apart from a half-baked plot to move the club to Miami, there isn’t much else to the story before it takes a turn for the worse, transforming into a trite cautionary tale about the excesses of the lifestyle and heading for an all too predictable ending. It’s the kind of thing you might associate with the Judd Apatow school of filmmaking, where boys must always learn valuable life lessons and try to grow up. It’s certainly not the kind of junk that made Soderbergh one of the more original filmmakers in recent times.
The man hasn’t been on top form for a while but this is surprisingly weak stuff, by any standards. For one thing, you have to wonder why screenwriter Reid Carolin wasn’t sent away to shake up the script, like maybe ditch the sermonizing and scrap the distracting love interest, since it has all the spark and chemistry of a wet sock. For another, seeing as the love interest wasn’t scrapped, why did he not tell the otherwise beautiful Cody Horn that keeping one facial expression at all times puts her in danger of being the next Keira Knightley? Because one Keira Knightley is quite enough.
In any case, it’s a shame the film falls apart because it works quite well for a while and is good fun. Even the dance routines have their laughs and McConaughey in particular seems to be having a blast. I’ve never had much time for Channing Tatum but he does well here, showing a decent knack for humour to go along with all that other stuff that the ladies like so well. He made a living for a while as a stripper and apparently that’s what inspired the story.
While that doesn’t work like it might have, it’s nice to see that Soderbergh hasn’t lost his ear for a killer soundtrack, or his eye for a great visual shot. Though we know there’s only visual that matters here, these boys and their unreal moves.
For most viewers, I’m sure, the rest is just killing time.