Directed by Steven Soderbergh and starring Channing Tatum as Mike, Matthew McConaughey as Dallas (the owner and father figure), Alex Pettefyr as Adam and Cody Horn as Adam's sister Brooke. Xquisite is a club that showcases a strip show for women. Where as female strippers are on poles and strip all the way down, these men give out a show in bright lights and music and just end up in G-strings. Adam meets Mike at a construction job and is quickly fired and sees Mike again at a club and is quickly thrusted into stripping giving him lots of money and ability to be with any woman, which gets to his head. Mike is the real star as he wants to be an entrepreneur making handmade furniture out of junk but struggles in his effort. He has a slow building but obvious romance with Brooke as he has his sex buddy Joanna (Olivia Munn) who they have threesomes with.
Set in Tampa, Florida, their ultimate goal is have a club in Miami. We meet the other strippers Joe Manfaniello (True Blood), Matt Bomer (White Collar), Adam Rodriguez (CSI Miami) and Kevin Nash but we barely get to know them as characters. Either I am not used to Soderbergh's style or the script by Reid Carolin is merely a sneak peak into a person's life than the traditional mainstream narrative. Not to get super spoilerly but is a threat involved but I barely feel the threat. Things are said but we don't see it. And we never get to see Miami, it would been nice to see that. Channing carries the movie. I went to see the movie with my girlfriends and one said it as a bad porno with bad acting. She said she got what she paid for as she wanted just eye candy. And there is plenty of eye candy.
Straight boyfriends might be concerned that this movie is only for straight women and gay guys but it gives equal opportunity to all. Men might sympathize and relate to Mikes problems or Adam's over-zealousness. There are plenty of breasts (three pairs at least), all the men show their butts (Channing most of all) and we see a penis in the corner of the screen for a few seconds---most likely a stunt 'cock.' We see the shows but I wish we saw more of the other shows as the majority of them are in a montage and the shows we see more in full are Mike's and as a group. Rumor is Channing and Soderbergh are planning on a Broadway show but not sure if they want to be a musical. I think if this was a musical movie, it would had blown "Rock of Ages" out of the water. I felt like singing was missing. Matthew does plenty of it, but Tom Cruise's singing gives more to desire.
In the end, it is an entertaining movie but for my taste, I would have liked more to happen and more character development from the other actors. But like I say, the movie is more of a sneak-peak in a person's life, it is not a normal plot---it is just a vignette. But just like the women that go to their shows in the movie, in real life group of women go see this movie and swoon.
