Like “Reservoir Dogs” with a Cockney bark — but without
tough-talking meditation on jealousy and marital betrayal. Its cast is
stellar —
But its script, from
the cowriters of “Sexy Beast,” is nothing more than a heavy rotation of
expletives and redundant riffing. (The F-bomb is dropped 162 times,
according to one count on the Web.) The whole thing feels like
middle-period Mamet with English accents, and not much to say.
The premise: Winstone is
unhappy in her marriage, has been cheating on him. So what does he do?
He assembles his mates, all of whom seem to have watched one too many
British crime movies, and they abduct the loverboy, a Frenchman working
in a
For most of “44 Inch Chest’s” running time, then,
Diamond and his crew gnaw and jaw, twitch and cuss, circling the
adulterer, and torturing him, as he sits trembling, a hood over his
head, tied to a chair. And this takes place in a pretty much bare room,
in an abandoned building, in an empty stretch of town.
Music video director Malcolm Venville whooshes the
camera around, jump-cutting and flashbacking, but his hyperactive
visuals really serve only to draw attention to, not away from, the
flimsy, one-note aspect of the screenplay.
As the burly cuckold, Winstone blubbers and rages,
and Hurt (with false teeth that amusingly thwart his speechifying) and
McShane, playing a cool gay gangster, are fun to watch. But ultimately,
“44 Inch Chest” has very little on its mind.
P.S. — That said, Hurt does offer a wonderfully
colorful synopsis of the Victor Mature-Hedy Lamarr togas-and-torment
classic “Samson and Delilah,” intercut with footage from
moment on, but in the thick of all of “44 Inch Chest’s” theatrical
jabbering, the moment is, well, appreciated.
44 Inch Chest
2 stars
MPAA rating: R for pervasive strong language including sexual references, and some violence
Running time: 01:35
Cast: Melvil Poupaud;
Directed by: Malcolm Venville
—
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