The Full Monty

One thing I've always appreciated in British films is that the actors look like Real People. I don't mean unattractive, but just normal everyday looking, unlike Hollywood actors who are exceedingly pretty with perfect teeth and stylish clothes, and unlimited bank accounts, no matter what their occupation. In this film, a group of unemployed steelworkers decide to put on an amateur strip show to make ends meet. It is presented as a comedy, but it does have some very moving moments, as it shows the despair and desolation of unemployment. And it subtly displays the economic conditions of Thatcher's England, where entire industries were shut down, taking jobs and local economies along with them. As in other British films, the characters seem real, like people we would know if we lived in their town. I can picture having a pint down at the local pub with Gaz and Gerald more than, say, Tom Cruise.

I remember this movie when it originally came out. It looked interesting, but I was younger at the time and I wasn't allowed to watch R-rated movies. Later, I finally saw this movie about three years ago on HBO. I laughed my a** off. It was so freakin' funny and I still think it is funny. I bought the "Fully Exposed" two disc DVD and I still love this movie. Yeah some people don't understand British humor, but I love it still. I grew up watching Bristish shows like "Mr. Bean" and "Are You Being Served?" I love those shows and I love this movie, I think it is one of the best comedies ever made. I highly recommend it, you will laugh as hard as I did.

Robert Carlyle and Mark Addy combine with a great support cast to bring one of the freshest comedies in years to the big screen. Set in Sheffield after the great 'City of Steel' Days, there are more people in the dole queue, than out at work.

Struggling for money the pair decide that if the Chippendale's can get the kit off and make a packet, then why can't they. They recruit some more strippers, all desperate for some cash, and promise the city the Full Monty. Now all they need is to learn how to dance, learn how to overcome there fear of the Full Monty and sell some tickets.

This film is a very funny view of a struggling community in what was once a thriving city. Great characters, slick and realistic dialogue and great direction, this is one of the finest British comedies ever.

8/10

This is a great black comedy. A bunch of losers down at the job centre have no hopes of getting a job. As the film progresses, it picks up momentum as the big date approaches. Some great scenes of 80's Britain, the job centre, the clubs, the houses with paper-thin walls and low ceilings. You know what the finale is going to be, but it doesn't detract at all from the enjoyment of the film. It doesn't get political, as some other commenters have complained, but why should it? This is about the consequences of 80's Britain, not the causes. The characters are 100% believable, in their appearances and their behaviour. The fat one is the sort you see on a Saturday night in just about every city centre pub in England (and at the football matches too!). A pity some viewers from across the pond couldn't pick up the accents, that's not altogether surprising but consider that this film was probably not originally intended for worldwide distribution and if you had taken the accents away you'd have taken away also a lot of its charm.

PS: Sheffield, where the film was based, is actually quite a nice town in many areas.

I want to start off by saying, if you're looking for slap-shtick comedy and low- rent toilet humor, this is NOT the movie for you. It has its moments of "belt-in- the-face" fun, but they are consistently grounded in the real problems the lead characters face -- unemployment, loss of family, lack of self-respect, fear of ridicule and a bleak future that promises even greater failure. This is not a Farrelly Brothers kind of story...and that is what makes it so special.

Gaz is broke, on welfare, lives in the projects, is behind on his child support and is threatened with losing his son to his ex-wife unless he can pull together 700 pounds (about $1100). But this is Sheffield, England -- once a boomtown but now a deadening city of shopping malls and garment mills, where the factories (and the guys that worked in them) are empty shells of themselves. The women have jobs; the men have job fairs. Into this comes a touring "Chippendale's" dance troupe (aimed at women only; after all, they have the spare money) and an idea is born. Gaz and some mates will strip all the way, give the ladies "the full monty", as a way to earn some quick change.

The idea is preposterous. Only one of the six men in the new dance troupe is good-looking enough to pull it off (pun intended); the rest are either fat, skinny, old and/or ugly. But the movie's gentle suggestion is that not only is beauty in the eye of the beholder, but so is self-respect...and in following through with their plans, they gain a LOT more than just 2000 pounds each.

Robert Carlyle is good as the anchor of the piece, always pushing and planning and cajoling and begging and even stealing, as need be, but it's the rest of the cast that makes this movie work -- from Tom Wilkinson as a manager ashamed to tell his wife he's lost his job to Mark Addy as a man who's so ashamed of how fat and unattractive he is, he's driving his wife away right down to Hugo Speer and his joyful "let's have a blast" attitude.

"The Full Monty" is a gem of human comedy aimed not at the gut but at the sense of hope we all carry. I recommend it for anyone who needs a lift.