#56 — Matthew McConaughey as Dallas in Magic Mike (Steven Soderbergh, 2012)

Employing a freshly coined portmanteau that was immediately tiresome, the entertainment press relentlessly invoked the McConaissance all throughout the awards season run that provided a lot of shiny hardware for a shelf located in Austin, Texas. To be fair, there was some cause to marvel at the artistic rejuvenation briefly enjoyed by Matthew McConaughey around the dawn of the twenty-tens. The actor immediately vaulted to the A-list after unexpectedly nabbing the lead role of idealistic Southern lawyer Jake Tyler Brigance in director Joel Schumacher’s 1996 film, A Time to Kill, an adaption of a John Grisham novel at a time when that particular page-to-screen equation was basically guaranteed to bring casino-like hauls at the domestic box office.

McConaughey made the most of that professional bonanza, delivering a strong performance in the film and parlaying his newfound prominence to claim a place in interesting, challenging films. Then, it felt like he largely gave up. He gravitated to dim, dismal, undoubtedly personally lucrative features. The worst of them was probably the string of romantic comedies, their quality deteriorating before the eyes of the audience in a sort of cinematic radioactive decay. If the marketing department could whip up a poster featuring McConaughey leaning on his female co-star, that was evidently good enough to give a flimsy premise the green light. Given that career trajectory, McConaughey’s eventual determination to hit his mark for worthier projects felt less like a comeback and more like an atonement for broken promises.

The film community cast their vote for the pinnacle performance of McConaughey’s redemption arc; it wasn’t just the Academy that conspicuously celebrated his turn in Dallas Buyers Club. I maintain that its a very different film and approach to his craft that represents the very best McConaughey could give on screen. For anyone looking to understand why he is a performer who can genuinely take command of a role and elevate an entire film through a precisely directed detonation of personality, McConaughey’s acting in Steven Soderbergh’s Magic Mike holds the answer.

Magic Mike was famously inspired by lead Channing Tatum’s own experiences as a male stripper in his younger years in Florida. Understandably, Tatum has a proper star turn, deftly mixing vulnerability, vivid charisma, and magnetic physicality. Tatum makes the film fun, but McConaughey gives it weight. McConaughey plays Dallas, the master showman and part-time performers at Tampa’s Xquisite Strip Club. Dallas is by turns nurturing and demanding, genial and hostile. He presides over his troupe as a master manipulator, always knowing when his oiled-up moneymakers need to be given brief entry into a inner circle of decadence to remain motivated and when the proper course of action to meet that primary goal is tough treatment bordering on pure cruelty.

In McConaughey’s rendering, Dallas is a basically a cult leader. He envelops those he needs in his flock with attention until they are firmly in place. Then, and only then, does he reveal the levels of malice the drive him. Other actors might make Dallas simply villainous, but McConaughey never steps away from the character’s appeal. To a degree, that’s simply an extension of the gonzo energy McConaughey has carried with him from the moment he first rolled into view in Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused. More than that, though, I think McConaughey understands that leaving in place the traits that are alluring only enhances the danger. He’d done enough work that was safe to that point. Magic Mike is his pinnacle because safety seems to be the last thing on his mind.

Previously….

About Greatish Performances
#1 — Mason Gamble in Rushmore
#2 — Judy Davis in The Ref
#3 — Humphrey Bogart in Casablanca
#4 — Kirsten Dunst in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind
#5 — Parker Posey in Waiting for Guffman
#6 — Patricia Clarkson in Shutter Island
#7 — Brad Pitt in Thelma & Louise
#8 — Gene Wilder in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory
#9 — Jennifer Jason Leigh in The Hudsucker Proxy
#10 — Marisa Tomei in My Cousin Vinny
#11 — Nick Nolte in the “Life Lessons” segment of New York Stories
#12 — Thandie Newton in The Truth About Charlie
#13 — Danny Glover in Grand Canyon
#14 — Rachel McAdams in Red Eye
#15 — Malcolm McDowell in Time After Time
#16 — John Cameron Mitchell in Hedwig and the Angry Inch
#17 — Michelle Pfeiffer in White Oleander
#18 — Kurt Russell in The Thing
#19 — Eric Bogosian in Talk Radio
#20 — Linda Cardellini in Return
#21 — Jeff Bridges in The Fisher King
#22 — Oliver Platt in Bulworth
#23 — Michael B. Jordan in Creed
#24 — Thora Birch in Ghost World
#25 — Kate Beckinsale in The Last Days of Disco
#26 — Michael Douglas in Wonder Boys
#27 — Wilford Brimley in The Natural
#28 — Kevin Kline in Dave
#29 — Bill Murray in Scrooged
#30 — Bill Paxton in One False Move
#31 — Jennifer Lopez in Out of Sight
#32 — Essie Davis in The Babadook
#33 — Ashley Judd in Heat
#34 — Mira Sorvino in Mimic
#35 — James Gandolfini in The Mexican
#36 — Evangeline Lilly in Ant-Man
#37 — Kelly Marie Tran in Star Wars: The Last Jedi
#38 — Bob Hoskins in Who Framed Roger Rabbit
#39 — Kristin Scott Thomas in The English Patient
#40 — Katie Holmes in Pieces of April
#41 — Brie Larson in Short Term 12
#42 — Gene Hackman in The Royal Tenenbaums
#43 — Jean Arthur in Only Angels Have Wings
#44 — Matthew Macfadyen in Pride & Prejudice
#45 — Peter Fonda in Ulee’s Gold
#46 — Raul Julia in The Addams Family
#47 — Delroy Lindo in Clockers
#48 — Mila Kunis in Black Swan
#49 — Sidney Poitier in Edge of the City
#50 — Lee Grant in The Landlord
#51 — Nicole Kidman in Eyes Wide Shut
#52 — Haley Lu Richardson in Columbus
#53 — Jenny Slate in The Obvious Child
#54 — Ray Liotta in Something Wild
#55 — Jean Hagen in Singin’ in the Rain