44 Inch Chest

From the writers of Sexy Beast this potent and brutal look at the disintegration of one man’s life and mind when his wife drops the bombshell that she has met another man demonstrates how fragile the male ego really is. Colin Diamond (Ray Winstone) is an old school East End gangster. His life comes crashing down around him when his wife Liz (Joanne Whally) tells him that she is going to leave him for another man, a young French waiter (Melville Paupaud). Colin’s mind shatters in that instant and he degenerates into madness, grief and anger with a mind fixated on revenge. His four long-time friends gather to set the stage for Colin to reclaim his manhood in a shabby East End house. After kidnapping his wife’s lover, they shove him in a wardrobe while they hurl abuse at him and paint the vivid picture of what he and Colin’s wife were possibly doing to further enrage Colin into action. All the while Colin sinks further into his own delusional world of madness and grief.

The small cast of British stars are exceptional in this exploration into the male ego, psyche and the fine line between real love and obsession. Ian McShane plays an Intelligent, wealthy, slightly sociopathic homosexual (Meredith) with cool aplomb, John Hurt (Old Man Peanut) as the foul mouthed, aggressive bigot cuts through the entire film like a Cobra spitting venom with his visceral and deliberate fermentation of the turmoil in Colin’s already ravaged mind. Stephen Dillane (Mal) is smooth throughout. Joanne Whally (Liz) Plays her few scenes competently. Tom Wilkinson (Archie) is his usual solid and dependable self as Colin’s best friend and facilitates the blending of all the disparate characters together naturally. However, the most impressive of all is Ray Winstone. He is, to quote a line from the film, a colossus. His performance as an emotional, broken and grieving man (yes! You heard me right), emotional, grieving and somewhat mentally disturbed man in fact, is superb and I never thought I would ever say that about the East End hard-man. The journey through disbelief, grief, mental breakdown and resolution in a single night is exceptionally well done. The script, although profane to the extreme, can easily be adapted from film to stage play and I will be first in the cue to watch it, especially if this cast were to perform it on the big stage.

If you can handle the C and f-words in virtually every line then watch this film, otherwise, stay well away.