I was only six years old when the bizarre life of Chippendale’s creator Somen Banerjee ended with him hanging in a prison cell, so I was blissfully unaware of the utter craziness intertwined with the male-stripping tour’s history. That craziness is about to hit the big screen.
According to Variety, Tony Scott won’t be completing his train-movie hat trick he’s started with The Taking Of Pelham 123 and is continuing now with Unstoppable (complete with prodigal Denzel Washington), and will instead be taking on this bizarre story. While I am hard pressed to conceive of anything more unpleasant than a film filled with cheesy male stripping, bad 80s music, and Tony Scott’s eyeball-numbing visual madness, the director will apparently be styling the film closer to his more sane True Romance.
Tony admittedly has a lot to work with- the story of Steve Banerjee is essentially that of Scarface, except with pec-flexing in place of coke. Banerjee started from nothing, took over a shitty nightclub, turned it into a beefcake phenomenon, and became increasingly nuts and paranoid with his success. A whacked choreographer and an FBI informant later, Banerjee found himself on trial for conspiracy, attempted arson, racketeering, and ordering a hit.
Maybe Scott is just out to make the most thrilling bachelorette party film ever.