44 Inch Chest
Well this was a curious one. Watch the trailer or look at the movie poster and then take a quick glance at the admittedly funbag of a cast list, and you can’t help but ask yourself two important questions;
Where is Guy Ritchie and how much does it cost to get Vinnie Jones out of bed in the morning?
Well, it seems Ritchie has gone beyond mere grim mockney hard-case posturing these days (well this century’s hard-case posturing anyway) , and Jones? I think he must be swimming in his pool on Mulholland Drive.
And it’s just as well, if we’re honest, as neither of these two would fit in here at all. With a cast list that includes Ray Winstone, Joanne Whalley, John Hurt, Ian McShane and Tom Wilkinson, just for starters, and you already have more than a couple of handfuls of talent to be going on with.
When Colin (I mean, really, how cool is the name Colin, ever?) Diamond (Winstone) comes home to his wife (Whalley, yes, still foxy) of twenty-one years to hear that she has met someone else, he goes a bit off the deep end. When she refuses to tell him who the man is so he can commit foul and unpleasant things upon his person, she is unsurprisingly reticent to give up the information. So like all husbands from a certain part of “movieLondon”, he knocks her about a bit, punches her in the face and chucks her through the plate glass window. Sounds like he really loves her. No, really.
What struck me more than anything is how the film didn’t really need to be a film at all. This would sit far more comfortably in the realm of the theatre. There is practically only two mentionable locations and only really one in which all but one of the characters inhabit throughout the entire performance. There is little use for props, save for a wardrobe, and this ensemble piece could really have been presented just about anywhere. The acting talents on show are truly worthy of note, to a man (and woman). Winstone’s Colin is wracked and cracked one minute and a lumbering anvil of a man spitting venom the next. Hurt and Wilkinson are also performances to be watched and watched again, such is the attention they give to their portrayals.
Not just for the embarrassment of riches, however. Oh goodness me no, for the real reason that Ritchie, Statham, Jones etc aren’t required, is this is not the least bit like what you were expecting from the aforementioned trailer/poster etc. It never requires the aid of a gun-toting super-villain (or superhero), there’s no drugs in it and nobody get kneecapped or hung upside down by their ankles on top of a tall building.
This is not flash, it doesn’t have any guns in it and it’s really about as cool as my Grandad’s armpits after a day down the mines. Yes, there is bravado, threats of violence and a ton of bad language foul enough to make even the angriest tourette’s sufferer blush. But this isn’t stylish. This is, albeit slightly warped, a tragic love story.
Not a film as such, but a theatrical piece that wants to be an acting masterclass, though the script is a little lazy to be called worthy of it’s cast. Nonetheless, a great turn by all concerned .
Watch out for a brilliant Steven Berkoff scene in the casino betting on the roulette table with McShane’s Meredith. Glorious to see and highlighting a man that is truly worth the entrance fee if only for the briefest of glimpses.
Still, I’d like to see it on the stage. I somehow feel it will come off better.
44 Inch Chest is released in UK cinemas on
22nd January 2010
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