Magic Mike

Tonight I saw Magic Mike, starring Channing Tatum and Cody Horn.

Let's be real—none of us were going for the plot anyway.

Magic Mike is the stripper name of Mike (Tatum), who has a lot of 'career' irons in the fire. He's a construction worker, auto detailer and maker of high-concept furniture, but his bread and butter comes from stripping.

Adam (Alex Pettyfer) is a 19-year-old 'kid' who Mike meets on a construction job. Down on his luck, Adam needs work, so Mike recruits him to be a prop guy at the club...which soon leads to him also becoming a stripper. And a drug dealer. And a punk.

Amidst all the chaos is a budding romance between Mike and Adam's sister Brooke (Horn). Brooke is the physical opposite of all the ladies that frequent the club: low-maintenance, sans makeup, real breasts. He's immediately smitten, of course.

As Mike attempts (quite unsuccessfully) to keep Adam on the straight and narrow, Brooke acts as his judgmental conscience, all the while falling equally in love (or lust) with him.

If the characters weren't so devoid of intelligence, it would have borderline sweet.

But Mike thinks he can get an SBA loan with a stack of ones he collected from his underwear, and Adam thinks he can 'lose' a backpack full of ecstasy and not repay his debts to the drug lords.

Really?

Yeah, it's not so good.

But the werewolf from True Blood (Joe Manganiello) does do some dancing, and Channing is undeniably convincing as the 'lead' stripper, so there are moments of pleasure here and there (I was personally partial to the 'military' sequence).

And Matthew McConaughey? Well, he's almost too convincing as the slimy club owner.

All in all, for a stripper movie billed as the ingredients for a quintessential ladies' night, I could have done with much less talking and a lot more action.

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