Review: 44 Inch Chest
Probably not a film you’ll know very much about, 44 Inch Chest is directed by a photographer, doesn’t have a high budget, has a simple plot and will probably just slip away into the distance condemned to be amongst the masses of British films that go unappreciated.
Perhaps the excellent choice of cast and the little moments of exquisite film making may save 44 Inch Chest from that fate, because it’s not your average British gangster film. It’s not about money, it’s not about drugs, it’s not even about guns. None of those things are even mentioned in the film. Instead, 44 Inch Chest is a film about a wife’s infidelity and a husband’s struggle to cope with this.
You feel very much for Winstone's character - he plays his part exceptionally well. He's almost unrecognisable at times from the usual Winstone persona...
The film follows Colin’s attempt to recover from his breakdown and choose whether to punish both wife and waiter or let them live. The way 44 Inch Chest shows Colin’s decision making is a great choice of film making – Colin has dreams about his friends and cheating wife that help him come to a decision. The quirky nature of these dreams gives the film an edge that keeps it interesting, despite the bulk of 44 Inch Chest consisting of dialogue.
Admittedly the dialogue is well written and contains a gritty realism. However, this film doesn’t escape the trap that a lot of British crime films fall into – the stereotyping of the London dialect and the colourful choice of language to promote the idea of toughness can become a little tiresome. “Fuck” is spoken 162 times and an even more colourful “c” word is used more times than is welcome. If 44 Inch Chest earns its 18 rating from anywhere it’s from the language use.
Thankfully though the cast supporting Winstone help the dialogue flow, especially John Hurt who is particularly masterful as a bitter old man who doesn’t hold back his thoughts and lets everyone know exactly how he feels.
Tom Wilkinson (Michael Clayton, Rock’n'Rolla) is also excellent as the more quiet and calm Archie, Ian McShane (Deadwood, Sexy Beast) has his moments as the suave, eccentric and openly homosexual Meredith, whilst Stephen Dillane (King Arthur, Goal!) finishes off the group of friends as a testosterone fueled Mal. Every individual performance in 44 Inch Chest is played with brilliant conviction and you don’t really notice that the film only has seven people throughout. Each character plays off the others around them and the little back stories and moments each get in the limelight are great to watch, particularly Meredith’s character.
These are five character with five different personalities but they play off each other brilliantly.
Much like the cast the film is fairly bare bones – only a handful of locations are used, most of which only are used to establish the locations and events and the narrative is very simple and easy to understand, if not the weird dreams Colin experiences. Despite the minimal production value, director Malcolm Venville really uses what he has to good effect. Several moments are highly memorable and the opening sequence in particular is one of the most enigmatic yet simple openings to any film I’ve seen. John Hurt steals several of these moments to himself but lets everyone around him have their time too – Hurt’s story telling scene along with the introduction of Loverboy are particularly excellent highlights of the film.
Overall Impressions:
Five brilliant individual performances, some excellent scriptwriting and the subtle elements of comedy to splice up the drama save 44 Inch Chest from being a letdown had the awkward stereotypes and the heavy amount of dialogue influenced the flow of the film more. 44 Inch Chest is well worth a watch – expect to walk away from the film thinking that you got what you wanted from it.
Rating: 
Sounds very interesting the main character in this movie is only in gangster movies it seems like. He’s still a very good actor though. I need to go see this.