Steven Soderbergh, known mainly for his direction of action/sci-fi films such as Haywire and Contagion, brings us this revealing (in every sense of the word) portrait of the underground stripping world, based loosely on Channing Tatum's early days as a male dancer. The title character, Mike (played by Channing Tatum), is an entrepreneur by day, and an exotic dancer by night. He is trying to start his own customized furniture business, making tables, chairs, and such using materials such as old car parts, junkyard trash, etc. He also manages several businesses, including a roofing and tile business. He has been saving money for quite awhile from his odd jobs and dancing in order to finance his dreams of building custom furniture. At one of his roofing jobs, he meets Adam, who he nicknames "The Kid". The Kid is a down on his luck guy with a bad attitude and a knack for getting in trouble. He lives with his sister, Brooke, who is very protective of her little brother. So, Mike recruits The Kid to be a dancer. He meets the other dancers: Ken, Tarzan, Richie, and the owner of the club, Dallas. Dallas is trying to finance a move from Tampa to a much larger space in Miami, where business would surely be booming. So, The Kid begins to fit in, and is soon one of the crowd favorites. He eventually gets into the business too deep, and he begins selling drugs for the club's DJ. While Mike's relationship begins to grow with The Kid, so does his relationship with The Kid's sister, Brooke. Soon, The Kid gets in deep trouble, losing 10,000 dollars worth of drugs. Mike pays his debt, spending most of the money he was saving, in order to keep The Kid from getting hurt. The movie ends with Mike and Brooke presumably starting a relationship in Tampa, while the other dancers and The Kid make the move to Miami.
To start with, the movie actually turned out a lot better than I thought it would. It was greatly directed by Soderbergh, who captures both the grittiness of the business and the fun had by those involved with it. The actors did a great job, making themselves very believable in their respective roles. The standouts were Channing Tatum, who really comes across as a person who doesn't just want to be a stripper for the rest of his life, Matthew McConaughey as Dallas, the club owner who can be fun looking on the outside but deceitful behind all of it, and Cody Horn as Brooke, who brings out the best in Mike. I wish I could say that Alex Pettyfer was good as The Kid, but the characters attitude was so crappy that it just flawed the performance. Many people were disappointed that there was an actual plot and storyline, instead of just two hours of Channing Tatum stripping. The plot did seem a little off center at times, and the movie dragged a bit around the 1 hour mark. One of the more surprising things in the movie were the dance scenes. Sure, gyrating half-naked guys aren't for everyone, but they were actually entertaining and often very funny with the concepts that the dances would be based around. Another more entertaining thing to watch was the audience. The showing I went to was primarily female, and to just watch their reactions to what happened on screen was very entertaining. The movie had charisma and entertainment value, if nothing else. In closing, it was a very well made movie that was actually entertaining, even if the plot wasn't all there. For a movie about male strippers, it is accessible to both male and female, with both finding things that they can enjoy throughout the film. It is the Boogie Nights of this generation.
Rating: B+
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