LYT review: 44 INCH CHEST
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Jan 14 2010, 1:01 PM
On the way into the screening for 44 INCH CHEST (I know the
title should have a hyphen in it, but it doesn’t, and I’m a full believer in
reproducing titles as shown), a colleague was heard to ask, “How come a movie
called 44 INCH CHEST only has one woman in the cast?” Like him, you need to be
disillusioned quickly: this is not a documentary about LA billboard model
Angelyne, nor a Russ Meyer tribute. No, the chest in question features the
sweaty, hairy man-boobs of Ray Winstone. Shaggy, bearded, and pacing like a
caged animal, the SEXY BEAST star looks like a missing cast member from Spike
Jonze’s WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, and has the same kinds of mood-swings. His
wife just left him, though, so it’s somewhat understandable.
Former commercial director Malcolm Venville starts strongly:
close-ups on some bits of broken glass. Torn cushions. A family pet in hiding.
Hary Nilsson’s “Without You” on the soundtrack. Then we gradually round a
corner, and see a man lying on the ground. It is, of course, Winstone, who
occasionally blinks his eyes in tune with the music.
Winstone’s Colin Diamond has trashed his house after his
wife of many years, Liz (Joanne Whalley) walked out. Seeing as how this movie
is from the writers of SEXY BEAST and GANGSTER NO. 1, we can presume that Colin
will not spend the entirety of the movie taking this lying down. Indeed, he
swiftly summons a quartet of English actors with whom one would not wish to
play around – Ian McShane, John Hurt, Tom Wilkinson, and Stephen Dillane – and
they swiftly snatch up Liz’s apparent new man, a French waiter (Melvil Poupaud),
as Wilkinson’s Archie threateningly wields a pepper-mill and admonishes the
diners to “concentrate on your snails.” The rest of the movie takes place in a run-down
room that has holes in the wall while retaining a working electricity supply,
as the five fellas figure out just what to do with their quarry, addressed only
as “Loverboy.” Everyone agrees that it has to be Colin’s decision, but Colin is
an emotional wreck, and not thinking clearly.
In the press notes, Winstone is quoted thusly: “Really, the
story is like something written for the stage, but Malcolm says that it’s only
a stage production if you film it that way and I think he has filmed it in the
right way. It’s cinematic.” I hate to disagree with someone who looks like he
might rake a broken bottle across my face for doing so, but...gotta dissent.
The bulk of the movie really does feel exactly like a play. This isn’t
necessarily a disaster, I mean, you’d pay to see these guys do a play, right?
But it does feel a little off, like the characters are talking to postpone the
climax, monologuing when in real life they would not, and needlessly limiting
themselves to one location when, for example, hanging the guy off a rooftop might
be more effective.
As Geekweek founder Jeff Katz has asked me to keep it PG-13,
suffice it to say that there is no way I can quote any lines of dialogue here.
Well, okay, one, because it sticks out overly conspicuously: at one point,
Hurt’s character, a cranky alcoholic homophobe named Old Man Peanut, is telling
the story of Samson and Delilah (enhanced by actual clips from the Cecil B.
DeMille movie), and says, “She’s given him the Full Monty.” A bit too
on-the-nose given the presence of Wilkinson.
And while I can’t directly quote, there is a monologue by
Colin at a climactic moment that is masterful in word and delivery, a treatise
on the nature of love in which he schools the new kid on the notion of love
being all about perfume and sex, that in fact real love involves years of
fetching the paper, doing the dishes, fixing the plumbing, and never expecting
to be thanked, that in the end it’s really hard work rather than a fleeting
fantasy. Every unmarried person in Los
Angeles
At a certain point, a significant chunk of what we’ve seen
turns out to have been all in someone’s mind (this is not as major a spoiler as
it sounds), and it initially feels like a cheat, albeit admittedly one that
could not have been done so easily in a stage play. But as things proceed, it plays
as less cheap; it’s just the first step into a dissociation from reality in
which Colin sees such things as Hurt’s head on Whalley’s body (truly as
terrifying as it sounds). One does at times get the feeling that things are
building up to some sort of major Shyamalan-like twist that will somehow show
us how everything we thought we knew was wrong. Thankfully this doesn’t happen,
but it does feel like the writers were going in that direction only to pull the
plug at the last minute.
There is an inherent degree of likability to a project like
this, given the actors involved, but 44 INCH CHEST never transcends that to be
greater than the sum of its cast. Perhaps it doesn’t need to be – Winstone, who
was always my favorite Will Scarlet in any Robin Hood tale ever, is a masterful
leading man; Hurt is gloriously nasty; McShane plays completely against type as
a decadent, fey homosexual who could nonetheless kick your ass as easily as he
might have sex with it; Wilkinson does well in the least interesting, most
traditional “straight man” role; Dillane conveys what he is, a smaller guy
trying to hang with the big dogs; and Whalley? Well, she was married to Val
Kilmer, so acting like someone fleeing a crazy spouse presumably comes
naturally.
See the movie if you like these guys. But you don’t really
have to see it on the big screen.
44 INCH CHEST opens Jan. 15 in Los Angeles
Luke Y. Thompson is a member of the Los Angeles Film Critics
Association. More of his reviews can be found linked here.
On the way into the screening for 44 INCH CHEST (I know the title should have a hyphen in it, but it doesn’t, and I’m a full believer in reproducing titles as shown), a colleague was heard to ask, “How come a movie called 44 INCH CHEST only has one woman in the cast?” Like him, you need to be disillusioned quickly: this is not a documentary about LA billboard model Angelyne, nor a Russ Meyer tribute. No, the chest in question features the sweaty, hairy man-boobs of Ray Winstone. Shaggy, bearded, and pacing like a caged animal, the SEXY BEAST star looks like a missing cast member from Spike Jonze’s WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE, and has the same kinds of mood-swings. His wife just left him, though, so it’s somewhat understandable.
Former commercial director Malcolm Venville starts strongly: close-ups on some bits of broken glass. Torn cushions. A family pet in hiding. Hary Nilsson’s “Without You” on the soundtrack. Then we gradually round a corner, and see a man lying on the ground. It is, of course, Winstone, who occasionally blinks his eyes in tune with the music.
Winstone’s Colin Diamond has trashed his house after his wife of many years, Liz (Joanne Whalley) walked out. Seeing as how this movie is from the writers of SEXY BEAST and GANGSTER NO. 1, we can presume that Colin will not spend the entirety of the movie taking this lying down. Indeed, he swiftly summons a quartet of English actors with whom one would not wish to play around – Ian McShane, John Hurt, Tom Wilkinson, and Stephen Dillane – and they swiftly snatch up Liz’s apparent new man, a French waiter (Melvil Poupaud), as Wilkinson’s Archie threateningly wields a pepper-mill and admonishes the diners to “concentrate on your snails.” The rest of the movie takes place in a run-down room that has holes in the wall while retaining a working electricity supply, as the five fellas figure out just what to do with their quarry, addressed only as “Loverboy.” Everyone agrees that it has to be Colin’s decision, but Colin is an emotional wreck, and not thinking clearly.
In the press notes, Winstone is quoted thusly: “Really, the story is like something written for the stage, but Malcolm says that it’s only a stage production if you film it that way and I think he has filmed it in the right way. It’s cinematic.” I hate to disagree with someone who looks like he might rake a broken bottle across my face for doing so, but...gotta dissent. The bulk of the movie really does feel exactly like a play. This isn’t necessarily a disaster, I mean, you’d pay to see these guys do a play, right? But it does feel a little off, like the characters are talking to postpone the climax, monologuing when in real life they would not, and needlessly limiting themselves to one location when, for example, hanging the guy off a rooftop might be more effective.
As Geekweek founder Jeff Katz has asked me to keep it PG-13, suffice it to say that there is no way I can quote any lines of dialogue here. Well, okay, one, because it sticks out overly conspicuously: at one point, Hurt’s character, a cranky alcoholic homophobe named Old Man Peanut, is telling the story of Samson and Delilah (enhanced by actual clips from the Cecil B. DeMille movie), and says, “She’s given him the Full Monty.” A bit too on-the-nose given the presence of Wilkinson.
And while I can’t directly quote, there is a monologue by
Colin at a climactic moment that is masterful in word and delivery, a treatise
on the nature of love in which he schools the new kid on the notion of love
being all about perfume and sex, that in fact real love involves years of
fetching the paper, doing the dishes, fixing the plumbing, and never expecting
to be thanked, that in the end it’s really hard work rather than a fleeting
fantasy. Every unmarried person in
At a certain point, a significant chunk of what we’ve seen turns out to have been all in someone’s mind (this is not as major a spoiler as it sounds), and it initially feels like a cheat, albeit admittedly one that could not have been done so easily in a stage play. But as things proceed, it plays as less cheap; it’s just the first step into a dissociation from reality in which Colin sees such things as Hurt’s head on Whalley’s body (truly as terrifying as it sounds). One does at times get the feeling that things are building up to some sort of major Shyamalan-like twist that will somehow show us how everything we thought we knew was wrong. Thankfully this doesn’t happen, but it does feel like the writers were going in that direction only to pull the plug at the last minute.
There is an inherent degree of likability to a project like this, given the actors involved, but 44 INCH CHEST never transcends that to be greater than the sum of its cast. Perhaps it doesn’t need to be – Winstone, who was always my favorite Will Scarlet in any Robin Hood tale ever, is a masterful leading man; Hurt is gloriously nasty; McShane plays completely against type as a decadent, fey homosexual who could nonetheless kick your ass as easily as he might have sex with it; Wilkinson does well in the least interesting, most traditional “straight man” role; Dillane conveys what he is, a smaller guy trying to hang with the big dogs; and Whalley? Well, she was married to Val Kilmer, so acting like someone fleeing a crazy spouse presumably comes naturally.
See the movie if you like these guys. But you don’t really have to see it on the big screen.
44 INCH CHEST opens Jan. 15 in
Luke Y. Thompson is a member of the Los Angeles Film Critics Association. More of his reviews can be found linked here.
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