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Review: 'The Full Monty' delivers some belly laughs
September 7, 1997
Web posted at: 4:04 p.m. EDT (2004 GMT)From Reviewer Paul Tatara
(CNN) -- The tradition of the silly, painless little comedy is alive and well and living in England. "The Full Monty," about a group of unemployed Sheffield steel workers who decide to perfect a Chippendale's-style striptease act in order to bring in a few desperately needed quid, is about as thin as Kate Moss after a good hurl, but the performances are warm and genial, and it's all over before you know it. (The title by the way, is slang for a complete unveiling of the family jewels.)
The one-joke premise is that these variously dumpy middle-aged men (except for one of them, who is, shall we say, proudly well-equipped) are not the chiseled types who women want to see writhing buck naked on a public stage. The men's desperation, though, overrides this simple fact. It didn't override my not believing a minute of the movie, but I laughed pretty hard a couple of times and felt much better about my own body as I was leaving the theater.
'The Full Monty' movie trailer
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'The Full Monty' movie clip
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There is a guiding story behind the dancing shenanigans, and it doesn't really amount to much. Gaz, a lovable loser (played winningly by Robert Carlyle, who was the not-so-lovable loser Begby in "Trainspotting") is in pretty dire straits. His ex-wife is threatening to take sole custody of their 10-year-old son (William Snape) because Gaz hasn't been making child support payments. He just can't find a decent job, but the fact that he's also almost proudly lazy doesn't help, either. After watching a group of women go crazy over a Chippendale's routine (and after adding up how much they shelled out for the opportunity), Gaz starts recruiting other money-starved adventurers to put together a male strip show.
One of the problems with the movie is that there's absolutely no sense of surprise. You can see the scenes barreling down the pike 10 minutes before they actually arrive. But that isn't to say they aren't amusing. There had to be a sequence where a variety of sometimes funny, sometimes sad family men audition by stripping off to some bad disco music, and there is.
However, there are a number of nice moments in this sequence, with one of the funnier ones being the nearly good, but nonetheless engagingly enthusiastic performance of Horse (Paul Barber), an older black man who remembers his late-'60s soul moves, but doesn't really have the chops to properly manage them. Barber has a ton of charisma. His infectious smile is what I remember most about the film. This kind of unexpected little performance is one of the only things that makes it fun to go to the movies lately. I hope Barber gets a shot at some bigger roles.
The collection of neophyte dancers is like the crew of a 1940s submarine movie. There's one of everything. There's a stud, a closet gay (which the stud also turns out to be), a stuffy businessman, a fat guy, etc. There isn't a cigar-smoking wiseacre named Cookie, but there isn't actually a submarine, either, so they wouldn't need a cook. I have to say, though, that I do have a problem with a lot of commercial British filmmakers' insistence (the director here is Peter Cattaneo) on painting their unemployed working class as big, gooey sentimental sops. After "The Van" and "Brassed Off" (both of which I also quite enjoyed), this type of "pull-yourself-up-lad" story is becoming England's equivalent of the stateside "Boyz N the Hood" routine, in which every black teen-ager is a violent, drug-dealing homeboy, or about to become one.
Nevertheless, there is a sweet subplot involving the fat dancer (Mark Addy) overcoming his self-consciousness, and also a very funny bit of banter as the boys watch a videotape of "Flashdance" (Addy's character is appalled by Jennifer Beals' sloppy welding technique). "The Full Monty" is, for good or bad, a cute movie. I was already suspecting it was as the curtain fell, but knew for sure seconds after hitting the sidewalk when I heard one woman say, "That was cute," and another one said, yes, "That was a cute movie." Remember, you've been warned, but you might want to give it a look against your better judgment. That's all the "Monty" dancers are asking of their audience.
"The Full Monty" contains just a couple of shots of bare male backsides, and the sexual content is handled subtly. Teen-agers wouldn't wither and die if they were to see it. Rated R. 90 minutes, which is exactly how long it should be without starting to get old.
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