‘Magic Mike’s Last Dance' Trailer and Soderbergh's Best Recent Films

A trailer for Steven Soderbergh’s upcoming “Magic Mike’s Last Dance” has been released. As with all Soderberghs, I look forward to this one. It’s arguable no director has transcended multiple genres the way the great Soderbergh has.

The prolific 59-year-old director has moved between psychological thriller, to drama, to comedy, albeit never allowing the films to lose that distinct Soderbergh touch. He retired in early 2013, clarifying that he had a five-year plan that saw him transitioning away from making feature films when he reached his 50th birthday.

And yet, here we are at the start of a new decade, and, so much for retirement, Soderbergh has released 14 movies in the last 14 years, including this year’s excellent “KIMI.” After winning his Oscar in 2001 for “Traffic,” and also releasing “Erin Brokovich,” and “Ocean’s Eleven,” Soderbergh never again matched the critical acclaim that trifecta of films garnered. I believe it’s a case of critics taking him for granted.

Soderbergh is a master of the mise-en-scene, without knowing he was behind the camera, you can easily spot one of his movies. So, of all the ones released since his famous ‘98-01 five-movie stretch composed of “Out of Sight,” “The Limey,” “Traffic,” “Erin Brokovich” and “Ocean’s Eleven,” what has been his best film? Too many to choose from, personal highlights include “Behind the Candelabra”, “Logan Lucky”, “Che”, “Solaris”, “The Girlfriend Experience”, “Haywire”, “Contagion”, “The Laundromat”, “Kimi” ..

However, the film I keep going back to is 2009’s “The Informant.” It possesses the brilliantly dry comic sense that Soderbergh sprinkles all over his films, but ‘The Informant’ only centers on one man. The film contains one of Matt Damon’s most underrated performances, as pathological liar Mark Whitacre, vice-president of Agro-business giant ADM. Whitacre decides to whistleblow and lie about his fellow colleagues to the FBI, possibly in order to worm his way into a better job. Damon takes the character through the emotional ringer for the duration of the film, from hopeful and naïve, to cocksure and bashful, before the rug pull leaves Whitacre trying to clutch at straws.