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.
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.