In 1995, Paul Verhoven’s bizarre drama Showgirls both created and claimed the title of most notable film centered around strippers. It held this record for 17 years before the crowdpleasing dramedy Magic Mike took the mantle. And then, as Magic Mike and its sequel Magic Mike XXL maintained its place in the public eye, Lorene Scafaria’s Hustlers broke out onto the scene.
A true-story crime film about a gang of strippers who stole from their rich clientele in the aftermath of the 2008 recession, Hustlers has been the subject of praise and Oscar talk since its release. However, it’s still notable to look at Hustlers and Magic Mike as sister films, as their different motives and tones make for two sides of the same powerful and consistently watchable coin.
Hustlers - The Mentor
As good as Matthew McConaughey’s Dallas is (and he is great), that character walked so that Jennifer Lopez’ Ramona Vega could run. With all of the energy, wisdom, and passion that McConaughey brought to the role of the past-their-prime maestro performer, Lopez matches with a side helping of heart and emotion. By closing the gap that Dallas kept with his underlings, Ramona is allowed a chance to mentor not just as a businesswoman, but as an older sister, taking the edge just enough over her Texan counterpart.
Magic Mike - The Ensemble
Matthew McConaughey. Matt Bomer. Joe Manganiello. Adam Rodriguez. Kevin Nash. Gabriel Iglesias. Even outside of the lead roles of Magic Mike, the performances sparkle, with each character that influences the world having a distinct personality and motive shown through how they clash with the leads. While Hustlers does have a respectable cast, they’re mostly there to fill out the world as that film focuses more heavily on its first and second lead. Magic Mike belongs to the entire cast, and the off-the-wall fun the actors are having is clear in every second they’re on screen.
Hustlers - The Emotional Punches
Magic Mike might have some solid ups and downs, but Hustlers will make you cry. Easily the most surprising aspect of the film is how emotionally resonant the film can be, especially when the criminal endeavors of the leads start to come to their end.
The relationship between Dorothy, Ramona, and the whole cast of characters is supremely powerful, with a scene where everyone and their families come together at Christmas being one of the highlights not only in the film, but in 2019’s film output altogether.
Magic Mike - The Fun
Hustlers has a whole lot more plot than Magic Mike, so even though they have identical running times at 110 minutes, the former feels a lot heftier as a movie. Magic Mike uses the freedom of not having a lot of plot to relax in the yellow-tinted vistas of Tampa, Florida, and rest itself on the free-living charm of its cast and world. The film is a comedy not because it’s particularly funny, but because for most of the runtime a smile is plastered on the audience’s faces from the sheer exuberance of it all. The fun is Magic Mike’s biggest strength, and the thing that has and will continue to set it apart.
Hustlers - The Rise
Above all else, Hustlers is a crime drama, and every great crime drama follows the rise-and-fall structure. The rise in Hustlers is spectacular to watch, as these women hatch their plan to take money from willing men and give themselves the lives they’ve always seen through panes of glass. It’s an interesting scheme with enough moral grayness to keep the audience on their toes as the heroes of the story become richer and richer. The fall is standard stuff, but watching these women climb to the top is one of the more fascinating things about this already fascinating film.
Magic Mike - The Fall
For how fun Magic Mike is for around 90 minutes of its runtime, the fall has to be a steep crash into the ground. And steep it is, with Adam getting hooked on drugs, Mike having to bail him out, and tensions rising between the entire group. In this regard, the empathy and kindness of Hustlers works against it, as a true fall from grace can’t happen when people are being decent to one another. Magic Mike has a good 20 minutes of people being selfish, cruel, and manipulative, and that’s exactly what the film needed to craft a perfect fall from grace.
Hustlers - Portrayal of Sex Workers
A part of being a fun, easily digestible romp means that Magic Mike never gets to humanize its characters as well as it should, with Mike’s life only fully taking shape once he quits stripping for good and turns to “more respectable” ventures. However, in Hustlers, being a sex worker is not only an integral part of the characters’ lives that is never looked down upon, it’s never the center of the film’s conflict, just the environment where the film takes place. It’s an empathetic look at sex work that is almost never seen in theaters, and is one of the most refreshing things about Hustlers.
Magic Mike - The Dancing
In 2012, Magic Mike had an uphill battle, as it was the first major release to focus on male strippers, so in an attempt to further distinguish itself, the dancing became less of a backdrop for the drama and more one of the selling points of the film.
With Channing Tatum, a dancer for most of his life from his own experiences as a male stripper to his work in Step Up, in the lead, the dances in the film are vibrant, creative, and a blast to watch just on a choreography and staging level.
Hustlers - The Writing
For all its successes, nothing about Hustlers would work without Scafaria’s excellent script, that juggles both the responsibility of telling a real-world story and a crowd-pleasing energy with ease. Dorothy and Ramona are stellar characters, and the grander themes make their way into the story without slowing it down to preach or talk down. It’s an inviting piece of writing that lets the audience in on the joke just enough to pull the rug out from under them when the time is right. Hustlers’ script is fantastic, and wouldn’t be out of place in a Best Adapted Screenplay category come awards season.
Magic Mike - The Directing
No disrespect to Lorene Scafaria, who brings life and magic to her film, but Stephen Soderbergh is… Stephen Soderbergh. Every frame of Magic Mike is dripping with style, the fun moments infectious, and the darker moments solemn and harrowing. In traditional Soderbergh fashion, he brings career best performances out of Tatum, Pettyfer, and Matt Bomer, among most others, making the whole movie bristle and pop with enthusiasm and energy. And the best part about it is that Magic Mike is still a lower-tier Soderbergh movie, that’s how good he is.
