User reviews

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.

(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.

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

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.

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!

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.

With a cast comprised of John Hurt, Ray Winstone, Ian McShane, Tom Wilkinson, Steven Berkoff and intermittently Joanne Whalley, one can fully understand the feeling that there must be something substantial at the core of 44 Inch Chest. Just how do you accumulate so much powerhouse English talent in one Cockney "crime" film? The answer supposedly lies in the trusted filmography of screenwriters Louis Mellis and David Scinto, whose previous outing Sexy Beast is the most powerful, intelligent and provocative British gangster film since The Long Good Friday. But something is fundamentally amiss here. The futile indulgence and show-offy profanity of their script results in not so much a narrative of any body or core as an exhibition of one-upmanship between some of England's most powerfully present actors to see who can pronounce the c-word the most often and with the most bitterness. The winner is John Hurt.

We feel we shall be in for a charismatic exercise in style once absorbed in the film's opening, an affected but atmospheric scene with Winstone as Colin Diamond, a brawny thug who has been demeaned into a lamenting shell of a man because his wife has run off with some younger man. We find him as the camera smoothly streams through his shipwrecked flat, then fixing on his disillusioned face while Harry Nilsson belts Without You on the stereo. Indeed, it is this unevenly handled but nevertheless interesting theme that was strongest in the writing and directing, the fragility and disconcerting retaliation of the male ego, the inscrutably tough exterior's potential to be shattered like glass and being too shocked by its own vulnerability to successfully pick up all the shards. Winstone is seamless in his consistent evocation of this theme throughout his performance, and although the surrounding movie renders that quality rather insignificant, his delivery of every line, often huge monologues, is thoroughly captivating, as is the nature of his tremendous presence as an actor.

But after that opening scene, the devolving dramatic pretension grows more and more transparent, with much of the film shot unimaginatively in one room. We listen and listen as Colin's violent and verbal mates persuade him toward his next move: nab the cocksure lover boy who has instigated the anguish, lock him in a chest that's theoretically sized to capacity and discipline him gangster-style within an inch of his life using a barbaric blend of muscle and lingo. There is literally a point by which the story does not seem to be going anywhere, just concocting sequences of peripheral significance out of thin air and laboriously treating itself to them.

It simply seems to all be for show. These guys aren't gangsters as much as they take on the shell of cinematic gangster persona. Winstone's dilemma isn't something that is expounded upon or made to change him or anyone else, but something that functions as a reason to get all these hambones into a room so they can add gusto to their dialogue by means of profanity with thick Cockney accents as well as to say things like, "I like a line the size of a Toblerone" and "I wouldn't give her the pickings out of my handkerchief." And Malcolm Venville, the director making his debut here, seems more in love with the stylistic exercise he gets in contriving music and montage out of the crevices of a chamber play than he does in elucidating or providing a bedrock for his characters.

A simple film about a successful car salesman (Winstone) and his friends (Hurt, McShane, Wilkinson and Dillane) kidnapping his wife's lover (Poupaud) in an attempt to teach the lover a lesson, get revenge on the cheating wife (Whalley) and to repair the broken-hearted husband's shattered ego. Driven by strong dialogue and momentous presence from all six characters. But the wonderful mood of intensity doesn't really seem to move forward, it just kind of lingers. Emotional outbursts and other theatrical expressions are convincing, being that they're delivered from a talented ensemble cast, but it becomes a bit redundant when it happens more than once and takes the story nowhere. If you want a similarly strong cast in the same type of movie, but executed more successfully, try "Sexy Beast".

**½ (out of four)

I saw the film last night and have been puzzling over it ever since.

The homosexual references in the film are many and I think I can detect the 'message'. The hard man who can't find the spirit for revenge; the old man who lacks respect from others in his old age; the lover who can't defend his love; the wife who can't be faithful to the man who truly loves her and so forth. Victor Mature and Hedi Lamarr in the spliced-in clip from 'Samson' - an anti-feminist blast if ever I've seen one. The character who comes out best is the one played by Iain McShane. He is unremittingly witty, has a functional attitude to sex yet has an eye for beauty. In the end, the old man agrees to accompany him to the Clayton (a gay club)and therefore seems to be getting to grips with his superannuated homophobia. The gangster's conversion through love gives rise to a new kind of world where other characters can find their true selves. What else could explain the grafting of the wife's head on to the old man's body, for instance? As a non-homophobic heterosexual male, I'd have appreciated a lot more up-front honesty about the film's themes. I think I've just seen 'Brokeback Mountain Meets No Country for Old Men' but with British cultural references.

Such a bad film... it is built up in writing as being witty and revenge filled, in actual fact it is neither. The only bit of action that happened was a woman getting punched in the face. The plot drifts from daydream to reality, neither of which are remotely entertaining, and ends in the biggest of all anti-climax.

If you like watching a group of aged men sit down, swear and talk about things which they might do (but never actually do), then watch this film.

If you prefer watching a film that is entertaining, do not watch this.

Rubbish

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

44 Inch Chest is packed full of bloated, preening masculinity, cold hard chauvinism and dense, wordy exchanges that seem pulled right off the stage, an intense bit of British pseudo-gangster quirk with two writers who seem intent on heightening every syllable to near surreal levels of style. The same scribes are responsible for the glorious verbal stew that can be found in Paul McGuigan's brutal Gangster No. 1 as well as Sexy Beast, and while the level of viciousness here is left almost entirely to the spoken word alone, the elliptical sting of their script still hits home, and even ramps up a bit from those films. A mopey, consistently weepy Ray Winstone stars as boorish Colin Diamond, an gent whose wife (Joanne Whalley Kilmer) has been caught in an affair with a chiseled french pretty boy (Melvil Poupoud). He resorts to a melancholy, comatose state as his perceived manliness visibly circles the drain. His circle of friends arrives, each with their own flamboyant ideas for resolving the situation. Velvety Meredith (Ian McShane, cool as a cucumber) looks on in snooty amusement. Violent guttersnipe Mal (Stephen Dillane, replacing Tim Roth) has the brawn but neither the brains nor ambition to act. Archie (Tom Wilkinson) is the bewildered everyman. Old Man Peanut (a fire and brimstone John Hurt who devours the script like a lion feasting on a gazelle) is a bible thumping, crusty old pot of fury who suggests that wifey should be stoned to death for her indecency and betrayal. They spend the better part of the film pontificating like a babbling senate, whilst Winstone languishes in despair. One wonders what the point of it all is and where it's going, until we arrive at an oddly satisfying third act that somehow negates almost everything we've seen before it. Strangely enough, though, it works, if only to give us something we've never quite seen before, pulling the rug of genre convention out from under us and giving us a piece that almost could resemble a spoof of other works, if it weren't so damned straight faced and persistent in its execution. In any case, I could watch this group of actors assemble ikea furniture and it would still be transfixing. It's just a room full of talent shooting the breeze for most of the running time, and in a genre where one can scarcely here the performers talk over the gunfire and cheekily referential soundtrack a lot of the time, I'll damn well take something a bit more paced, quiet and stately. Winstone smears over his usual seething anger with a morose depression would almost be endearing if it weren't so pathetic. Wilkinson brings his usual studious nature. McShane is pure class in anything (even a few B movies I'm sure he'd love to forget) and he swaggers through this one like a regal peacock, getting some of the best lines to chew on. Dillane is detached and indifferently cruel, with seldom a word uttered, his lack of mannerism contrasted by the vibrant animosity of his three peers. Hurt is pure gold as the closest the film comes to caricature, just a vile old coot who belongs in the loony bin raving to the walls about awful things that happened 'back in his day'. Different is the key word for this one, and one might be easily fooled by the poster and synopses into assuming this is a revenge flick populated by action and violence. Not so much. Although a lot of the time that is my cup of tea, it's nice to get a welcome deviation once in a while, and this one is a real treat.

I will confess up front that I have not seen the wildly acclaimed and Oscar-nominated Sexy Beast. Writers Louis Mellis and David Scinto broke onto the scene with that film ten years ago, and seem to have done very little since. Even the box art for 44 Inch Chest mentions that film more than once. But the success of every movie should be measured on its own, and the trailer for 44 Inch Chest suggested that it would be one hell of a character driven piece.

Colin (Ray Winstone) has just found out his wife Liz (Joanna Whalley) is having an affair with a much younger man. At the encouragement of his friends (and with their help), Colin has the man kidnapped, tied up, beaten, and locked in a cupboard. They discuss at lengths what to do next and what will help Colin come to terms with his wife's infidelity. All signs seem to point to murder.

In a word, 44 Inch Chest is a mess. The film is incredibly shorter than one might think (the running time is 95-minutes, but the actual film without credits is less than 90), but it is more gruellingly boring than one would expect either. When the trailer suggested it was a character driven piece, it was lying. We learn very little about the characters in the beginning or even by the end of the film. Instead, the film is made up almost entirely of the cast standing around each other, discussing at lengths what should or should not be done next. And in almost every instance, the only thing that happens next is more talking. Even with its punctuated moments of violence, they merely stand as a momentary break from all the talking that is going on. I have read comparisons to the work of David Mamet, but even at his most verbose, his movies seem to have more going on than just talking.

But the problem does not lie with the talking itself, it lies more with what is being said and discussed. In a word: nothing. Almost all of the dialogue that comprises the film seems to just be thrown in to ensure there is no real dead air amongst the cast. I am a huge fan of Quentin Tarantino, but can admit that a great deal of the dialogue in his films seem to revolve trivial and meaningless things. But the man makes this things matter to the audience, and he makes his actors care about what they are talking about. How else can you explain how a discussion involving a "Royale with Cheese" became so wildly popular? Mellis and Scinto on the other hand, do not seem to have this gift. They simply seem to be throwing lines at the script for the actors to say, and not really offer any finite reason for any of it to matter. By the end, the whole film feels like a cheat. We are expected to care initially about Colin and the revenge he wants to wreak on Loverboy (Melvin Poupaud) for the emotional duress he has put him in. But whether Loverboy is killed or spared, it becomes almost secondary to how important the boring and insignificant dialogue quickly becomes.

Worse yet, almost every line is given some pop with the addition of a certain four letter word starting with the letter f, or a four letter word starting with the letter c. Again, going back to being a big fan of Tarantino, I have no problem with excessive profanity. But in this case, I almost had to turn the film off from being so disgusted at how easy these two words slip off any number of the actors' tongues. I am usually surprised by how profanity-laden some films are, but this film got to be so excessive that it became outright annoying. I wanted to find something to like about the film, but the use of these two words just made the film even worse. At times, it almost came off as amateur, like the writers were trying too hard to ape much better gangster pictures from Tarantino, Martin Scorsese or even Britain's own Guy Richie. But using the word gangster to describe this movie may be letting it off a little easy, as we never really learn who these guys are, what the majority of them do for a living, or why it was so easy for them to kidnap Loverboy in broad daylight and not get caught.

I cannot really say much for the actors themselves, other than that they seem just as confused at what is going on as the audience likely does. Winstone, who I best remember as Mr. French in The Departed, puts his best foot forward and does the most of any actor in the film. We see how broken and distraught a man he is in the film's incredibly well-edited opening, and can see how affected he has become as the film goes on. But the hurt and anguish in his eyes and body language is all we really get to understand. His dialogue is wasted, and his actions seem misguided. On the same token, Ian McShane and John Hurt are two of his helpful friends who get to be the comic relief in the film, but seem even more wasted with horrendous dialogue. At least McShane appears to be having fun with it. Which is more than I can say for Tom Wilkinson and Stephen Dillane as Colin's other two friends, or even Whalley as his wife. They are all just given heaps of terrible dialogue, and next to zero character motivations.

44 Inch Chest is a movie that may have looked good on paper, but makes for an absolutely atrocious film. What little good there is here, is made absent by the end of the film. It feels like one wasted opportunity after the next.

2/10.

(Portions of this review originally appeared on http://www.dvdfanatic.com).

I like all these actors. The movie was a bore. The same dialogue over and over. I have no idea what they were thinking when they put this movie together. 20 minutes was enough for me. A stinker!