Andie Macdowell

Based on a genuinely moving true story, this film undercuts the realism by pushing its heroic machismo at every turn. It's a well-made movie, with an above-average cast, and yet both the story and characters are neglected in the rush to honour the real-life men who risk their lives fighting wildfires. Thankfully, there are some strong, quiet moments along the way, and the story itself carries a proper emotional wallop.

It's set in Prescott, Arizona, where Eric (Josh Brolin) is trying to get his firefighting team certified as hotshots, qualified to take on the big wildfires. Supported by fire chief Duane (Jeff Bridges), he builds a crew that includes loyal captain Jesse (James Badge Dale) and talented womaniser Mac (Taylor Kitsch), and he gives a second chance to Brendan (Miles Teller), a recovering addict who reminds Eric of himself. Then when the crew is certified as the Granite Mountain Hotshots, the pressures of work strain their relationships with their wives and children. Indeed, Eric's strong-minded horse-trainer wife Amanda (Jennifer Connelly) is annoyed that she's now seeing even less of him than before, but she supports his passion for the job.

Director Joseph Kozinski (Tron Legacy) directs the film with a rather relentless earnestness, clearly in reverent awe of these men. This allows for brief moments of raucous camaraderie, carefully controlled for a young teen audience, so the characters are interesting if never authentic. They feel more like overgrown Boy Scouts than earthy firefighters, and the overtones of heroism amongst them are a bit exhausting. Events unfold anecdotally, providing carefully concocted moments both in family lives and in the rather dull work of containing a wildfire. And this somewhat choppy approach prevents the film from building much momentum as it approaches its emotional climax, which is genuinely shattering.

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Resisting the temptation to capitalise on the camp value of these characters, Channing Tatum and his producing-writing partner Reid Carolin create a startlingly loose and thoughtful follow-up to their 2012 hit. Yes, it's still the story of a group of ridiculously muscled men who take their clothes off for a living and enjoy a laugh. And even without much of a plot it's a remarkably astute exploration of masculinity and gender politics. In the last three years, Mike (Tatum) has made a decent go of his furniture-making business, but his life feels stuck in a rut.

Then his old pals ask him to go on the road for one last hurrah to a stripper convention. So he heads off with new-age healer Ken (Matt Bomer), lovelorn beefcake Richie (Joe Manganiello), artful biker Tarzan (Kevin Nash), macrobiotic smoothie expert Tito (Adam Rodriguez) and food-truck driving deejay Tobias (Gabriel Iglesias). Along the way, they meet up with Mike's old mentor Rome (Jada Pinkett Smith), who provides two new guys for the team (Donald Glover and Stephen 'tWitch' Boss). And they get some favours from a newly single Southern belle (Andie MacDowell) and another old friend (Elizabeth Banks).

There's very little to the story, but the film's improvisational style allows all of the characters to deepen in quiet but significant ways. So the journey these people take is even more internal than the highways they traverse from Tampa, Florida, to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. The main point is that these men need to figure out who they are if they have any hope of finding happiness, and each one takes his own subtle voyage of discovery. The actors dive into this approach, which requires unusually subtle performances that combine sexy physicality with earthy, boisterous humour. What the film never does is fall back on the usual cliches about machismo or sexuality.

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Instead, it centres on the interpersonal drama and exhilarating dance moves.

After his mother dies, Boston teen Ren (Wormald) moves to small-town Bomont to live with his aunt and uncle (Dickens and McKinnon). Teens here are prohibited from dancing due to a tragedy three years earlier, so Ren is soon at loggerheads with the local minister (Quaid), whose daughter Ariel (Hough) is a wild child with a redneck boyfriend (Flueger) and an eye for Ren. As Ren deals with his own issues, he teams up with new friends Willard and Woody (Teller and Blain) to take on the system.

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What they generally aren't is full of capers designed by crackheads in search of comic relief, or a dominatrix dying to destroy the gold market with a Da Vinci alchemy machine only a cat burglar from Hoboken could steal.

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Bucking the odds, MGM's Beauty Shop spins off from the successful Barbershop comedies, taking Queen Latifah's sassy stylist Gina Norris from the second installment and setting her up in a potential franchise all her own.

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And, there's not a bottle of Windex anywhere to be found.

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