Will gay men and straight women (the movie’s key demographic) enjoy this movie? They should. But will straight men dragged to this movie by their girlfriends or wives (like myself) enjoy this movie? Actually, they just might. It all falls down to three important factors 1. There is nearly as much female nudity as male nudity (any movie with a topless Olivia Munn in the first scene can’t be called unfair), 2. Channing Tatum is playing the kind-of guy that could steal your girlfriend but probably get you to like him anyway, which is an important distinction that separates him from, say…Justin Timberlake, the kind-of guy that could steal your girlfriend and you’d hit him, 3. The movie actually is pretty good, bringing us to…
What Works: First of all, this movie makes male strip clubs look way more entertaining than female strip clubs. I’ve never been to a male strip club, but in this movie it makes it look like they really put on a show, and even bring women from the audience up onto the stage to participate (something female strip clubs never, ever do)…Now just contrast that with female strippers, who mostly just look bored as they go through the motions on stage and make it super-obvious they’re just there for the money to feed their kids and/or drug habit.
Anyway, this movie pulls a fast one, at first “seducing” the audience into thinking it’s a lightweight tale about male strippers just happy to be there and then gradually digging into a deeper theme. Which is, how can something so fun be bad for you? And the movie seems to suggest that if you’re constantly selling yourself, how do you keep from losing yourself, a great theme for generation Y that’s introduced so subtly some may not even know it. Holding it all together is Channing Tatum (a fellow Alabama native), resembling a young Matt Damon from Good Will Hunting a little bit more everyday, and I mean that in a good way. He plays a supremely confident guy who just might be sharp enough to realize the “fun” is becoming a little less satisfying each day. And, as always, Steven Soderbergh remains one of the best directors alive, and any movie he directs probably becomes a letter grade better for it.
What Doesn’t Work: When the second best performance of your movie is Matthew McConaughey, it’s hard to argue your film is top-loaded with talent. To say second-lead Alex Pettyfer isn’t much of an actor is generous. Plus, I could feel the target audience getting a bit restless during some of the more meandering scenes of dialogue, that, I felt, lent the movie more realism.
What I Would Have Done Differently: Probably cast someone besides Alex, and maybe downplayed the romance between his sister and Tatum’s character, because, to me, it was never fully convincing anyway.