Featuring an all-star cast of Britain's finest tough-guy actors (Ray Winstone, Tom Wilkinson and John Hurt foremost among them), 44 Inch Chest has all the makings of a big fat slice of man action marinated in machismo. Which it is. There's no mistaking this for a Judd Apatow, lusty, teenage rom-com. Not for long anyway. Nor is it to be confused with any one of several Guy Ritchie styled crime-caper rip-offs that has dominated the British box office for over a decade. For if 44 Inch Chest is anything, it is original.
Stylishly directed by newcomer Malcolm Venville, it recalls kitchen sink drama of the late 60's when locations took a back seat to character action. Here that action takes place largely in a single, dark room as five angry, often vicious men decide to set a record straight. In doing so, they reveal their own arrested development, deep seated hostility, a general ignorance of life and a total ignorance of women. And it's here that things get messy.
One's appreciation of 44 Inch Chest rests wholly on how well you digest emotional and physical violence that sits squarely on a bed of brutal misogyny. Writers Louis Mellis and David Scinto (Sexy Beast) know there way around this stuff, yet here it arrives loaded with such a heavy nastiness that it's almost impossible to swallow. Never mind that each of these men reveal a soft underbelly, (one is a secret romantic, another is a mummy's boy, yet another is gay), these are the cuddly sides of ugly men you don’t want to meet in a dark cinema. Or anywhere else for that matter.
Unique it may be, but neither that, gritty acting or sturdy production makes this any more palatable. While 44 Inch Chest is not pornographic violence on a scale beloved of Gibson, it certainly comes close.
// COLIN FRASER
moviereview colin fraser film movie australia review critic flicks