"It’s a shame that such excellent dialogue and acting isn’t enough to make up for its deficiencies in plot"
There’s much divided opinion on Ray Winstone. On one hand, he’s a lovable Laaandan rogue who’s been in loads of critically acclaimed roles. On the other, he’s a one-dimensional gravelly-throated thug who sells Kellogg’s Optivita in his spare time.
44 Inch Chest is a gangster drama which shows the sensitive side of Mr Apples and Pears but it’s not going to change your opinion of him one iota.
Colin is destitute after his wife, Liz, left him for another man. Devastated, he can only lie on his back in his destroyed apartment listening to Nilson’s “Without You” – a man brought low indeed.
Determined to get him back on his feet, his mates, a group of London gangsters:: smooth talking openly gay Meredith (Ian McShane), sensible Archie (Tom Wilkinson), yappy Mal (Stephen Dillane)and cantankerous old timer Peanut (John Hurt) abduct Liz’s lover, bundle him into the back of van and drag him off to a derelict house somewhere in London.
The next 90 minutes follows the discussion between the characters of what they’re going to do with Loverboy. Most of the film takes place within one room, peppered with flashbacks of how Liz came to tell Colin about her infidelity and Colin stalking the streets like a drunk and confused bear.
The acting is superb, particularly from Ian McShane as the self-assured smooth and charismatic Meridith – his Lovejoy background being an excellent background from which to launch some pithy and cutting put downs.
His banter with the homophobic Peanut (possibly the most vicious old man in the world) is frequently the best thing about the film; almost everything that Hurt says is hilarious.
Despite a promising start, the film starts to run out of steam in the second and third acts. A hallucination where Colin imagines his wife cracking on to his ultimately leads nowhere and the five are so unanimously decided that Loverboy should die, there’s no conflict between them
It’s absolutely littered with swearing; F and C bombs go off left, right and centre (unsurprising when you find out it’s from the same writers that brought us Sexy Beast), but it’s done with a certain rhythmic poetry that makes it threatening and funny at the same time. It’s not quite in the same league of creative cussing as In The Loop, but it’s wonderfully aware of the punctuation of profanity
It’s admirable in its restraint – the threat of violence always looms but rarely materialises and it has none of the stylistic flourishes of Guy Ritchie’s oeuvre.
It could easily be labelled as a misogynistic film, what with the violence against women, its perpetual use of the C word and its characters’ seemingly unrelenting hatred of the fairer sex. However, it’s more a film about misogyny rather than one that glorifies its practice; ultimately, all the characters are in their own ways scared or disconnected from women.
It’s a shame that such excellent dialogue and acting isn’t enough to make up for its deficiencies in plot, leaving an ending which feels unsatisfying, limping rather than striding across the finishing line.
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