Credible Magic

By Dan Hagen

“Magic Mike” turns out to be a surprisingly good movie, more drama than titillation.

Channing Tatum stars as a stripper in Tampa, a life he actually lived. The film’s themes include the aspirations of lower-class youth, the moral undertow of easy money and the ironic and sad contrasts between normal life and fetishized sexual objectification.

A credible look into an under-the-radar demimonde

Not as dark a film as “Boogie Nights,” the movie is an updated “Saturday Night Fever,” but superior to it. Tatum squirrels away cash toward his low-key dream — a business designing and crafting unique furniture — while befriending an aimless, out-of-luck 19-year-old whom he draws into the stripping game. He tentatively romances the boy’s sister, an unglamorous but solid medical assistant smart enough to see what’s in store for Mike and the brother she loves, and to want no part of it. The love story has an underplayed humor that gives it charm.

The most surprising thing about the film is its verisimilitude. This is the way life is lived, not merely for strippers but for higher-end waiters, porn performers, models — those under-the-radar people who have fast daily cash, youth, looks, drugs, easy access to everything you might want except, perhaps, a way up and out and onto solid ground.

These are demimonde worlds that are attractive to youth for a variety of reasons that ring true at the time, and they are seductive whirlpools that, like youth, must finally be left behind, transcended.

Channing Tatum plays big brother to Alex Pettyfer in "Magic Mike"