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44 Inch Chest (2009)

Director: Malcolm Venville

Time Out rating

Average user rating

21 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

Playing like one of Steven Berkoff’s theatrical pastiches of East End gangsterdom – with cod-Pinteresque cadences replacing Shakespeare’s – this profane, pretentious and seriously unfunny ordeal thriller reunites the writing team (Louis Mellis, David Scinto) and some of the stars (Ray Winstone, Ian McShane) of the far superior ‘Sexy Beast’.

A deliberately ambiguous opening – a slow pan around the devastated flat of supine villain Colin Diamond (Winstone) to the strains of Harry Nilsson’s ‘Without You’ – is followed by the initially unexplained abduction of a young French waiter (Melvil Poupaud) from a Chelsea restaurant. The victim is then locked up in a wardrobe in an abandoned East End warehouse by a motley crew of caricatured hardmen – Diamond’s geezers! – consisting of mother’s boy Archie (Tom Wilkinson), confident, black-shirted gay Meredith (McShane), semi-psychopathic Mal (Stephen Dillane) and the viciously unreconstructed Old Man Peanut (John Hurt).

The stage is set – and what a claustrophobic, theatrical, two-room stage it is – for a day of taunting, vicious banter as the traumatised, volatile and hallucinatingly drunk Diamond arrives and his pals encourage him to exact fatal revenge on ‘lover boy’ for, as flashbacks and dialogue reveal, his wife’s (Joanne Whalley) infidelity.

Aiming for black comedy and a redemptive satire on self-deluding male machismo, ham fisted debut director Malcolm Venville instead gives his cast enough rope to hang themselves rather than the characters they play, with the exceptions of poor Poupaud, an almost wordless skeleton in a cupboard, and the unfortunate Winstone, who graces what is otherwise a deeply unedifying movie with one of the most raw, deeply felt but wasted performances of his career.

Author: Wally Hammond

Time Out London Issue 2056: 14-20 January, 2010

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User reviews of this film

mcat0 said...

Posted on Nov 03 2011 18:05 Compelling at times, but more of an artsy play than a movie.

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dewaddict57 said...

Posted on Apr 06 2011 06:34 Valentinegirl, The usage of the lie is proper English. Lie does not require a direct object, whereas lay requires such. So, the statement that the "lie" was improperly used is clearly erroneous. Thus, it was not their lack of ability to speak that ruined the movie for you, just an opinion based on a lack of understanding concerning simple "nuances" of English grammar.

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tommy said...

Posted on Nov 20 2010 22:31 just rented, and watched this film, what a waste of money and time. rating -5.

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meercats said...

Posted on Oct 31 2010 07:59 A waste of some very good talent. Absolute rubbish script, over zealous use of language and there just didn't seem to be any plot. Definitely not "Sexy Beast". Took us all our time to sit through 90 minutes of trash.

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Jack said...

Posted on Oct 19 2010 00:48 Brilliant in every way...confronting if swearing is a sin, delicate here and there, great acting (not understood by US film lovers) and scene choices, We were moved to tears and gratitude. Don't miss it.

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Collie said...

Posted on Aug 21 2010 10:06 I just watched this film on DVD, I thought it would be fantastic, I love Ray Winston and John Hurt. But no. It was terrible. How come no one tried to start bailing out this ship when it was so obviously sinking? They should have sacked the writers and replaced them with people that knew what they were doing. Also why is it all in one boring room? The direction was crap.

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Valentinegirl said...

Posted on May 26 2010 19:50 Just rented this POS. Jaysus! Utter, utter Cr*p, with big ole knobs on.
The luvvies gave it some welly but I hated it almost from the trick shot at the start. (spoiler) HE'S NOT DEAD!
Two minutes later when Tom Wilkinson goes "You can't just lie there all day" in an impeccable sarf Lahndan accent, it was all over for me. Have any of these tossers ever MET a pwoppa geeza? Pwoppa geezers don't say "LIE there". They say "LAY there".
Stupid tin-eared arsewipes. And when your ear for speech is that thick, there's not much chance your sense of drama, plot etc will be any better.
Lazy, mockney rubbish of the lowest order. Avoid, unless you genuinely believe that EastEnders is an accurate reflection of life.

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anton said...

Posted on May 26 2010 08:55 I have not even seen the film but after the comments I think I have wasted my money with love film on this one.

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45 inch said...

Posted on May 26 2010 00:18 A smeg infestation.

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Kirsty said...

Posted on May 22 2010 00:41 I am baffled by this movie, what did they think they were doing when they made it?
It goes nowhere, it looks like a collection of badly lit stills, and the characters are monochromatic.
Absolutely clueless.

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Jean said...

Posted on May 13 2010 22:52 How fowl the talk -How boring the plot -Such a shame -We turned it off and threw it out -Just like the rubbish it was -

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Shazoo said...

Posted on Apr 04 2010 17:25 In 30yrs of going to the movies 44inch chest is the only time I've seen 50% of the audience leave within 20mins.Most mumbling this is shit!

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44 said...

Posted on Feb 17 2010 08:39 Wow, what a load of rubbish.
Who directed this, alan Partridge?

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Draco said...

Posted on Jan 30 2010 18:59 If I could have given this film zero stars I would have done. Total boring tosh, badly directed and no plot.

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John H said...

Posted on Jan 25 2010 22:33 Lets not pretend this is the modern equiveilent of Shakespear. 5 great Britsh actors brought together in what can only be discribed as a S£!T movie. It made Sherlock Holmes look positively brilliant. In fact I would have preferred to watch the Spice Girls Movie. The more I think about it the more angry I get. Feel conned and want my money back. The plot and fine acting was not lost on me it was just an extreamly useless boring movie. I think the director is a xxxx for hoodwinking the public. Best stop as the more I think about it the more angry I become. maybe that's the idea behind the movie. Totally misleading!!!!

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