Following around Mike, who wanted to get out of stripping and construction and into custom furniture, reminded me of Buck Swope from Boogie Nights. He got out of porn for all intents and purposes to become a stereo salesman except he knew nothing about it and was dumb as rocks. Mike, on the other hand, is smart enough and seems to have some kind of talent for building furniture, but like Buck, he can't get a loan from the bank.
Unfortunately for Mike, he can't find a donut shop full of dead people with tens of thousands of dollars in its safe and he ends up having to pay for The Kid's cartel debts. He does still get out of the business in the end though and it made me smile knowing that he found at least something that he wanted. He was going into the unknown with even less of a plan than he had at the beginning of the movie, but at least he's growing up and can hopefully raise his credit score enough to get the loan.
This movie, all in all, struck me as Boogie Nights characters who were smarter, more aware and had day jobs. In Boogie Nights, they all just worked in porn full time and were free to be dumb as rocks as long as the good times rolled. The good times never stopped here as Big Sexy Kevin Nash never found his porn star wife having sex in Dallas' driveway and didn't seem like they would, so they could just keep being dumb. The Kid was clearly the dumbest of all of them, and without Mike or his sister around is probably going to kill himself in Miami, but with equity, he had no incentive not to just blow his money on whatever he wanted and act like an idiot.
Mike, however, is the one character who doesn't have a Boogie Nights archetype. He actually had ambitions outside but wasn't a moron like Buck. He had talent and didn't need to be doing this. If he'd applied himself somewhere else and even had a decent credit score (hell, even I have a good one with tons of student loans), he could be well on his way.
And he got out at the end thankfully so that arc paid off even if he was financially much worse off. He needs guidance and hopefully the Kid's sister can give it once they have some food at 6 am.
I thought The Kid's arc was too stereotypical and hackneyed. A young guy gets fame in a sex business and does too many drugs and gets in trouble with the wrong people! Oh my God! Just the fact that Mike was hanging out with him kinda redeemed him to some degree since there must have been something there if someone as seemingly decent as him was hanging around him so much. But who knows.
Dallas absolutely stole the movie in every scene he was in. We didn't get to see McConaughey dance until the end but it was absolutely hilarious as was every group number they did. The July 4th one was amazing, especially. Kevin Nash's inability to move after having no quads left was hilarious and Mike's dancing to Pony to shove in Dallas' face was surreal.
Anyway, I've had a pretty good run of picking movies so far with The Guest being the only one I didn't really like.
***
Power rankings as of America's birthday:
1. Frank
2. Snowpiercer
3. Gone Girl
4. Magic Mike
5. A History of Violence
6. John Wick
7. The Guest
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