44 Inch Chest

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.

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 really didn't think I would be writing a poor review about a movie with Winstone, Hurt, McShane, Wilkinson and the still beautiful Joanne Whalley as central characters.

However, this was just a waste of their talents and a boring film to boot. Its a talkfest so if you don't fancy the idea of almost all of the film consisting of dialogue in one room, this ain't for you. I liked the Before Sunrise and Before sunset movies with Ethan Hawke, these were talkfests too but they had a point and the characters were clearly defined.

In this movie, you don't really know enough about anyone to really care, you don't know if Ray Winstone really is a bad husband and how well his gangster mates know him and why they know him which is important in the whole witch hunt that takes place.

The writers for this wrote the excellent sexy beast and it looks like they didn't have anything left creatively here. Does every UK movie have to have a gangster undercurrent, its so overdone and this didn't help here, neither did the excessive swearing, I'm no prude, but it just wasn't warranted, if that was meant to portray Winstone;s mates as real hard cases, it didn't work.

And the ending was the biggest disappointment of all, I ended up looking around in astonishment, asking "is that it then"? It made all of what we had seen in the previous 85 minutes redundant.

Definitely not for everyone, even at times i found myself having a bit of a yawn and checking the time. However, it's a film worth watching to see some really talented acting and directing. Ian McShane, i thought, was the standout and was thoroughly brilliant as Meredith - i was blown away by his performance and every time he spoke i hung on his every word. Surely (at least) deserves a Best Supporting Actor nomination. Ray Winstone was scarily good, He wasn't an actor and it wasn't a movie. Ray Winstone had me utterly convinced that he was a broken down man who was being torn to pieces, both mentally and physically - but mostly mentally lol. The direction was also magnificent and the settings were just awe-inspiring, The way in which they made the surroundings look so sinister was just terrific. Although, i must say that the plot was a little dry. The director, the actors and the script-writers did an astonishingly good job, but the movie itself was a little disappointing.

A front-runner for film of the year? Probably not, but this movie definitely does come with it's moments with a bolster of some of Britain's finest talents. Ray Winstone, John 'F*****G' Hurt, Tom Wilkinson, Ian 'Lovejoy' McShane and some guy called Stephen Dillane. With its slightly muddled beginning's one is led to believe that there is somewhat of a dilemma at stake. Ray Winstone's alcohol fuelled, lost and idiocentric character Colin with his loose personality comes face to face with a situation that he clearly has no grasp of dealing with. So whom should he turn to in his hour of need? His trusting gangster friends of course.

Nestled in a room for the majority of the film each of Colin's friends play their part in trying to comfort him in his hour of need, or not as the case would seem. The centre of attention being Melvil Poupaud portraying a French waiter accused of committing sins with Colin's wife 'Liz' played by Joanne Whalley. What should Colin do with him? How does he tackle this scenario? The love of his life with another man? A French man!!! With his friends on board each offering their own unique words of wisdom you can all but feel Colin's mind fracturing into the unknown.

Alone I feel that John Hurt's foul mouth is worth the entrance fee, here's a guy who's pants I'd like to wear, clean or soiled, I'm not fussy. The guy really show piecing his talents here as an old school foul mouthed gangster, and when I say foul, I really mean foul, I'm pretty sure that my mother would have a hernia should she witness some of the obscenities to fall out old John's mouth here. His character 'Old Man Peanut' re-telling the story of Samson and Delilah in his own narrative is quite simply priceless.

Ian 'Lovejoy' McShane adding a certain suaveness to his role as homosexual 'Meredith' shunning Old Man Peanut's homophobic remarks with confidence whilst Mommy's boy 'Archie' played by Tom Wilkinson is a lacklustre character who just really wants to go home, a character that is seemingly fell into the criminal underworld by accident. Stephen Dillane plays slightly shady 'Mal' who Colin has his suspicions about, or is it all in his head?

I feel that the film could be quite easily misunderstood, it is in essence a dialogue film with word play being order of the day, breathing scantily clad undertones of Reservoir Dogs, a film I always remember my Granddad going to see at the cinema on a holiday in Brighton to escape my Nan for the day, he came out disgusted and disappointed in his choice. Naturally however this film is no Reservoir Dogs and it definitely won't appeal to all with its minimal scene locale and John Hurt's foul mouth. So if you want aesthetically pleasing locations and out of world experiences or if your put off by naughty words then you'd best stick with Avatar. But if your interested in witnessing some of Britain's finest meat play it out in a room together for 95 minutes then this movie is well worth a butchers look.

7/10