Bienvenidos a Chippendales

If you remember the grifter in "Nightmare Alley," a movie from 2021 starring Bradley Cooper, you will notice that grifter's life trajectory is pretty similar to Steve Banerjee's. From rags to riches, they both get too greedy for their own good, only causing their demise. It is very sad that some people don't know when to stop and just be grateful. When I start the first episode of "Welcome to Chippendales," I have no idea what it's about and who the actors are. But it is an extremely pleasant surprise that it is starred by four major powerhouses in their own right: my favorite Murray Bartlett who is outstanding in "The White Lotus," Juliette Lewis who is an Oscar nominee at 18 years old, comedian Kumail Nanjiani who apparently has very good dramatic acting chops, and the underrated Annaleigh Ashford. This series hits all of the right notes. It has very good production values, good eye candy, some humor, suspense, and the important moral lesson to be learned from the downward spiral of Steve Banjeree's greedy life, similar to the sad geeker/grifter in "Nightmare Alley."

I wasn't sure what to expect going into this. I already knew I liked actor who plays the main character in other comedies I've seen him in, so that's initially what inspired me to give it a shot. It was surprisingly entertaining! I didn't know a lot of the backstory involved in coming up with the club Chippendales, so I even learned quite a bit after this series! Give it a chance, go in with an open mind, you may even learn something. Quite a few well-known, charismatic actors too! Not hard to get into the story really, and they do a decent job of introducing each character enough that you find yourself genuinely interested in what happens to them next.

If I hadn't watched the documentary I'd probably have enjoyed it more. I don't get why so many characters had to be fictionalised. It's a fascinating story without adding fake people into the mix... and then making them so crucial to the plot. It's just stupid and lazy. And they left interesting characters out!

The last couple of episodes were short and feel tacked on. Again they're 75% fantasy.

Such a waste of genuine talent and good performances. Nanjani really gets to show off his dramatic chops here. Ashford plays his wife very well. Murray Bartlett makes a great Nick. It's just a pity they were t given a better script.

Update: I didn't realize this was a mini series - my bad. That explains the fast pace development. Overall it was enjoyable, but it would have been so much better as a continuing series.

I watched the most recent documentary about Chippendales, which made me interested in checking this show out to see how much it aligned.

There's a bunch of creative liberties, I'm sure, but the writing and acting seem to be on point. The show is pretty fast-paced in terms of how the club progressed compared to how the documentary laid it out, but I think it's because they want more time to develop the characters (so you are be able to see their good sides before you see their bad sides).

I'm super impressed by the accuracy of the costumes, hair/makeup and even the cinematography. They actually try to make it look like a show that was filmed back then with the filters and shooting styles (e.g. Slow pan ins from far away). If you're a film buff, you'll appreciate the subtleties.

I'm excited to see where this goes and hope it stays on track. I'm also hoping they give some time to develop storylines for some of the dancers, since in the documentary they had a lot of stories to tell - plus, it's always interesting to see from a different side of the business.

I've heard of chippendales when I watched a YouTube clip of SNL doing a skit about it but I never dug deep into it, let alone know who was the person behind the "magic Mike" alike shows. It definitely shows that once you gain fame from a business you own, you can be asking for trouble and you can even be the one who cause the trouble in the first place. It was always the "Steve vs Nick" fight club every time the guys always interact with each other. It's never a sit down and we'll talk about our ideas bit by bit. Nope it was always the pair of them constantly peed off with each other because their creative differences were basically shooed away.

The actors were really good, story was a little confusing at times with the bickering as well as the large amount of sex scenes but it was pretty interesting. I recommend people who like magic Mike to give this a go!