Since their debut on the staggeringly good “Sexy Beast,” writers Louis Mellis and David Scinto have been more or less absent from the film world — Mellis is one of half-a-dozen credited writers on the messy comic-book Western “Blueberry,” and they were developing sci-fi novel “Jennifer Government” for Steven Soderbergh, but nothing’s been produced. Nothing, that is, until “44 Inch Chest,” which sees the writers teaming with photographer and director Malcolm Venville, who, like “Sexy Beast” helmer Jonathan Glazer, comes from the world of commercials.
Like their earlier film, it’s got overtones of a gangster movie, but skirting around the edges of the genre — it’s clear that the characters are somewhat disreputable, but you’re never quite sure how, and it bears more resemblance to a Harold Pinter play than a Guy Ritchie movie. Colin Diamond (Ray Winstone) is a car dealer, who’s been left by his wife (Joanne Whalley) for a French waiter, and has imploded completely, shrivelling into a weeping wreck of a human being. His friends Archie (Tom Wilkinson), Meredith (Ian McShane), Mal (Stephen Dillane) and Peanut (John Hurt), in an effort to restore some pride to their cuckolded pal, help him kidnap his wife’s new lover, and take him to a dilapidated house, with the intention of killing him.
The opening is fantastic – a catatonic Winstone lying in his trashed living room, listening to Harry Nilsson’s ‘Without You’ on repeat, and the first half-hour generally is very strong – like “Sexy Beast,” the dialogue is sharp and sweary, with almost certainly the most uses of the C-U-Next-Tuesday word in the history of cinema. The performances are generally terrific, although for the most part the actors are playing archetypes, rather than characters: John Hurt is vile and hilarious, but is basically channeling Harold Steptoe (the old man in the original UK version of “Sanford & Son”), while Ian McShane gives good value as a louche, homosexual gambler, but occasionally comes close to being a stereotype.
The honors probably go to Ray Winstone and Stephen Dillane – the former is astonishing, giving one of his best, and most atypical, performances, playing a man who, to all intents and purpose, has had his heart torn out. He’s a crumbled shell of a person, and we feel his pain, but we also get glimpses of why his wife would walk out on him. Dillane, a tremendous stage actor whose film work has rarely matched his abilities, with the possible exception of Michael Winterbottom’s “Welcome to Sarajevo,” looks like he’s really enjoying himself, as the shiftiest of Winstone’s crew, and it shows – he walks away with several of the key scenes. But all the actors are strong, and we would watch these five guys read a German-language computer textbook quite happily.
The trouble is, after a strong opening, the script and direction don’t quite deserve them. It’s a very stagey piece of work, almost entirely set in one location, and that’s fine – plenty of films have managed to wring real drama out of that (“Lebanon,” set entirely inside a tank, is a good example — our review’s coming later in the week), but the script can’t keep the tension up – there’s a lengthy dream sequence which doesn’t really reveal any more about Winstone’s psyche than we already knew, and the story basically peters out, anticlimactically.
Perhaps because of this, Venville doesn’t seem to trust his actors enough to keep the story contained, and tries to open it out, but it never quite works – for instance, a lengthy digressive story told by McShane’s character about a knight on the town with a gambler (played by Steven Berkoff, apparently auditioning to play The Penguin in the next Batman movie) is fun, but adds nothing, and is totally ill-fitting with the tone of the film around it.
There’s plenty to like about the film, particularly when viewed as a kind of examination of the middle-aged male psyche, and it’s beautifully shot and scored (by regular David Lynch collaborator Angelo Badalamenti). But the unevenness of the film means it pales in comparison to its predecessor. But then, so do most films, we suppose… [C+]
