ELLE film club: Magic Mike

The Proper Review

There’s more to Magic Mike than just a bunch of buff men getting naked: this is a film from Oscar-winning director Steven Soderbergh, after all. It’s the story of a penniless young buck, Adam (Alex Pettyfer) who’s thrown into an apparently shiny new world that offers way too many temptations for him to handle.

In the meantime his more seasoned mentor, Mike (Channing Tatum) starts to wonder if there’s more to life than stripping off his kecks in front of gaggles of drunk, randy women. It’s Boogie Nights with strippers, an American Fully Monty... but it only touches on the darker issues tackled in those films. Magic Mike is as much about fun and spectacle as it is about those important life choices.

The performance scenes are hugely entertaining: the guys go through dozens of costumes and routines while trying to part hordes of screaming girls from their hard-earned cash.

While all the boys are buff, Tatum (who was a stripper before he came to acting) has the best moves and duly takes centre stage as the titular Magic Mike. A romance with his friend’s sister is sweet but less involving than all the behind-the-scenes hedonism and racketeering.

The Inexpert Impressions