Venganza premeditada

If you are looking for a gangster film this ain't it. Perhaps this is why the poor reviews as a result of disappointed viewers expecting another 'Sexy Beast' or 'Reservoir Dogs'. This film is about marriage and what happens to a man on seeing everything he lives for fall apart.

The 'gangster' setting is a device that allows the issues and emotions to be addressed in their full harshness and the cast handle it extremely well. Colin Diamond (Winstone) displays how strength & purpose is gained from the marriage bond and how vulnerable it can leave you. This is very well contrasted by Merediths (McShane) refusal to be tied and how it leaves him invulnerable but also somehow inhuman. The other members of the gang also serve to reflect aspects of attachment to another person.

Ray Winstone gives the lead character violent/twisting/agonising emotional turmoil in the way that only he and DeNiro can do. If this was Winstones first film he could easily win awards, unfortunately for him the public has come to expect to see stuff like this from him. The other main actors also give excellent performances.

This film must be viewed in its own light, if you expect it to be a gangster film or a love story you will be disappointed. Take it as it is and it is well worth watching. It is certainly well written, acted and produced, and examines a subject familiar to most of us. However, it still only feels like a 'little' film and will not stay with me so I can only give it an 8.

44 INCH CHEST is a very dark, brooding, cynical, fairly static stagey film that allows a platform for some of England's finest actors a tour de force in roles they likely chose because of the opportunity to work together. Aside from a few out shots (scenes where the audience is allowed a bit more information about he background of the story and its characters) this film feel like a stage play, so finely wrought is the dialogue and the pacing of the piece. For those who saw and appreciated SEXY BEAST (also written by Louis Mellis and David Scinto and using some of the same actors), this film will reward. For those easily offended by foul language and physical violence this may be a film to pass.

Aging gangster Colin Diamond (Ray Winstone) is informed that his wife of 21 years Liz (Joanne Whaley), is leaving him and in complete disbelief and denial his emotions gradually unfurl into violence: he must discover the name of the lover. After sever beatings Liz tells him and we jump to a scene where Colin and his fellow crime friends are kidnapping the waiter Loverboy (Melvil Poupaud, whose intensity as an actor commands our attention despite his lack of dialogue) in a van. Loverboy is taken to a filthy room, beaten (we suppose) and is locked in a chest awaiting Colin's decision on how to handle the lad. Colin's friends include the mamma's boy Archie (Tom Wilkinson), the seemingly suave Mal (Stephen Dillane), the frankly gay Meredith (Ian McShane), and the evil Old Man Peanut (John Hurt): oddly enough the only background we know of these crooks is through flashback scenes with Archie caring for this mum (Edna Doré) and Meredith taking a call during a assignation with a nude lad on the sofa (Ramon Christian). The point the friends are trying to make is that Colin is losing his grip on life because of the devastation and humiliation of being betrayed by his adulterous wife. They urge Colin to kill both Loverboy and Liz, make a coin toss to decide whether the reluctant Colin kills or lets them go, and when the toss comes up with a thumbs down decision, Colin is left alone with Loverboy tied to a chair to discuss the future. How this discussion proceeds and how Colin arrives at his decision on how to complete this cycle is the bulk of the story.

So not much happens here with a script that is as foul as dirt and as powerful as a corpse- crushing machine - except the ability of this sterling crew of actors to bring to life characters who while they are terrifying on one level, show incredible support for their abused friend on the other level. It is a taut actors' piece, beautifully executed by actors and director Malcolm Venville. Not for the faint of heart but definitely for those who relish superb theatrics!

Grady Harp

No, this is not the direct fault of Tarantino or Ritchie or any conspiracy. This exceedingly trite and uninteresting film is the result of the popularity in recent decades of what I often term "pseudo-hip" cinema, a condescending attitude toward his or her audience by a scriptwriter (as well as a director) who feels more perceptive than the average bloke. Or average filmmaker who came before them (in this case, see the British gangster films of the '50s by the likes of Lewis Gilbert or starring Richard Attenborough.

Both Gilbert, more famous for his later Bond movies and quality feel-good items like "Educating Rita" and "Shirley Valentine", there will never be praise or film-buff adoration. No, it is the pranksters who catch the public's eye, but this followup to the unusual (and vastly overrated, natch) "Sexy Beast" has nothing to offer.

It is basically a one-act play, suitable perhaps for acting class or some limited run at a hard-up local repertory theatre. There's an assortment of gangster cliché figures, hardly worth calling characters, and their victim, an adulterer.

The subject of adultery is run into the ground here as if it were novel, timely or even remotely interesting. Ray Winstone, who I first admired way back in "Quadrophenia" and "Scum" (and even "That Summer") when an independent British Cinema (see: hit "Gregory's Girl") was making its name internationally, is stuck with a useless, unplayable role unworthy of his talents as the sob-story vegetable of a protagonist.

His pals/comrades are written to let the talented actors chew the scenery, with the great John Hurt especially indulgent in delivering a retarded, foul-mouthed zero. Ian McShane fares the best, given literate soliloquies to recite and basically able to stay above the low-life fray as an egotistical homosexual gangster. I first became a fan of his in 1971 watching "Villain" at a local Cleveland drive-in theater and though that gangster film (part of an early '70s renaissance headed by Mike Hodges) was roundly knocked by the critics, its violent power impressed me, as did the journeyman director, like Hodges from Brit TV, Michael Tuchner.

So Ritchie and his imitators sell tickets, and we will see this nonsensical rush to the bottom continue. These films are not entertaining nor enlightening -mere exercises in "Look ma, I'm swearing!" We probably have that jerk Brian DePalma and his "Scarface" to thank for that.

(I saw this at the Sydney Film Festival, but IMDb has it as "in production", so I may have seen an incomplete version.) The pitch would have been something like "Reservoir Dogs meets Last Orders". From Reservoir Dogs we get the basic set-up of a bunch of crooks played by fine actors meeting in a lock-up and debating what to do with their captive, plus an enigmatic title and a flashback structure. From Last Orders comes a group of top-notch actors clearly enjoying themselves in a brown, downbeat London.

Some of the dialogue is fun if you like expletives spat out in poetry-like rhythms. There are good jokes and the acting is, as you'd expect from this lot, pretty fine. I was particularly pleased to see Stephen Dillane get his chance to prove himself cinematically after such an impressive theatrical career.

The downside is the plot, or rather the lack of it. The basic premise is laid out early on in the piece, and there is no real conflict to maintain our interest. Contrast the uniformity of opinion here with the combustible dynamics of Mr Blond, Mr White et al and the problem is clear. Some dream sequences intended to open the tale out feel forced, and a couple of minor twists are inconsequential.

If this script had been produced with a younger group of unknown actors it might get hailed for its promise. With this cast, 44 Inch Chest can only be counted a disappointment.

This is without doubt the worst British film I have even seen by a long country mile. I felt cheated afterwards and for the first time in my life in a movie theatre I felt like asking for my money back on the way out. The script is incredibly naive and downright boring. It smells like a script written by a first year student on the night following his/her first viewing of Reservoir Dogs where he/she has a brain wave to do a British version. I stayed to the end because I thought the film might develop as it had a sterling cast. There is nothing, I repeat nothing nothing nothing original about this film. For future I will ensure I read all reviews before I go to any films written or directed by the names attached to this film. Save your money and go across the hall to the other theatre in the plex.