We like Channing Tatum best when he keeps a straight face and lets his body do the work. He can make ordinary decency affecting, too, though scripts that ask him to explain himself often cause trouble.
Fi1m perspective
In Magic Mike (2012), Tatum dances in a hooded top while keeping his face perfectly straight. Steven Soderbergh shoots him from the back of the club, keeping the whole body and the reaching audience in view. Tatum does not need to announce that the routine is funny. Mike Lane's wish to build furniture matters because Tatum is convincing as someone who regards stripping as another job.
The dancing helped him break through in Step Up (2006), but 21 Jump Street (2012) established a comic partnership with Jonah Hill. Foxcatcher (2014), in which he plays Mark Schultz, took him towards more intense dramatic work. We would not mistake that change for proof that the earlier work was beneath him. His dancing and comic timing are substantial acting skills, and Soderbergh has usually understood their value.
In Soderbergh's Side Effects (2013), he is quietly good despite having little to push against. Logan Lucky (2017) gives him more to carry as Jimmy Logan, a decent man who has stopped expecting much. Tatum makes that disappointment credible, though there are stretches when he becomes glum enough to slow a loose, funny heist film. He can underplay a part until there is too little left for us to watch.
Magic Mike's Last Dance (2023) exposes a different weakness. Reid Carolin's script asks Mike to talk about art, desire and what women want, and the lines sound recited rather than thought. Yet the opening dance with Salma Hayek Pinault is a pleasure: Tatum lifts and turns her while using a sofa and a table. Soderbergh shoots and edits the sequence with enough patience to show the work. The rest of the film makes us wait too long for more of it.
In Zoë Kravitz's Blink Twice (2024), that straight face belongs to the rich, therapeutically fluent Slater. We laughed at Slater because Tatum plays his rehearsed concern without a wink, assuring people he hears them before they have spoken. We are less persuaded by what the film has to say once its mystery is explained. See it for him, with limited expectations of the thriller around him.
Biography
Channing Tatum is an American actor and producer. He was born on 26 April 1980 in Cullman, Alabama.
He made his film debut in Coach Carter (2005) and had his breakthrough in She's the Man (2006) and Step Up (2006). He rose to prominence playing Duke in the G.I. Joe films (2009, 2013) and the title role in the Magic Mike films (2012, 2015, 2023), which he also produced.
Tatum's other films include 21 Jump Street (2012), 22 Jump Street (2014), Foxcatcher (2014), Logan Lucky (2017), Deadpool & Wolverine (2024) as Gambit, and Blink Twice (2024) as Slater.
