44 Inch Chest

Well ... I've always joked to friends that I'd happily pay to watch Ray Winstone cooking beans on toast. He's perhaps best known here in Oz for the wonderful Vincent, but has been a real favourite for me since his early work.

However, if he'd got the saucepan and can-opener out at some stage in these proceedings, it could only have improved things.

The opening scene is compelling, with Winstone sprawled semi-conscious on the floor amidst the wreckage of a family living room. As if the poor fellow clearly hadn't suffered enough already (even if we aren't yet privy to the particulars of his situation), the almost-forgotten hideousness of Nilsson's Without You provides perfect background music.

Our hero's friends and family rally round in this time of crisis and there's some diverting argy-bargy (amid fantastic London locations) as our group of protagonists is assembled. This stage-setting phase of the movie concludes with the group's arrival at a grimy terraced house - I use that phrase intentionally because at this point the film effectively becomes a conventional play spread over two locations.

This terrific cast never exceeds or even equals the sum of its parts amid production values that call to mind BBC's Play For Today in the 70s and early 80s. RADA's likely advice from an earlier period for portraying cockneys also seems have been in play - drop yourself about 3 social classes and 50 IQ points and you'll be fine, love.

It's no mean feat to tell a fulfilling story within a bubble such as the one created here, and it doesn't really come off - we never learn enough about the relationships between the players or the context that surrounds some of the remarks that are made.

Yes, Winstone's character is supposed to be confused, I do understand that, but I don't believe the audience should be sharing in that affliction.

Stephen Dillane impresses but John Hurt's wasted here, and with his ill-fitting dentures (at least I ASSUME that's what they are ... ) he channels Phil Davis doing his best Albert Steptoe impersonation at one of Mike Leigh's Christmas parties.

The one lasting benefit for me is that I might just tone down my own bad language a little. They just don't stop in this film. Everyone knows that a well-deployed swear word can have massive impact but this dialogue is peppered with Anglo-Saxon to the point where it rapidly becomes not only meaningless but irritating.

I suspect I sounded a little like this at the footy the night before, and I can only promise my neighbours I'll try to be better in future ... if that works I'll tell my daughter she should seriously think about doing the same!

It's so simple, but just fantastic. Dump of a warehouse, cheated husband,5 faithful friends( thugs or thugs wannabe's), and funny, brilliantly profane, smart script and actors to die for.If you are easily offended with cussing( and I never understood the nation appalled with word f..k, and in the same time in exaltation with violence in their favorite sports and news), just miss this movie. It just isn't for you and your ilk. This is a treatise on machismo and marriage and friendship, and it shows why man are the weaker sex. After all the bluster and violence, what stays is bottomless sadness. This is not "Sexy Beast", it is much better and deeper. Just fantastic...It just proves my point that I've been informed that my review contains a prohibited word. If I owned 20 guns and rifles, nobody would care. But a word that describes a common sexual practice scares everybody.

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.

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.

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.