The Full Monty (1997) – 3/5

The full review for the full picture

„The Full Monty“ is a co-production between the United Kingdom, Italy and the United States from 1997, so this film already had its 25th anniversary last year and depending on when you get here to read this review of mine, more time will have passed. It is not a long movie at all, barely makes it past the 1.5-hour mark and this includes the closing credits already too. I guess if you look at this film’s success with awards bodies, then you can safely say that it is a contender for biggest success for almost everybody here from the cast and crew. I saw this yesterday on the occasion of a British film retrospective and I am pretty shocked now to read about all the honors it received. I mean it is not a bad film at all, but it is the kind of movie that I would have thought people appreciate more with time passing by, even if I will say and cannot lie there that a great deal of the awards recognition seems exaggerated. I mean an Oscar win for the score really? I know they still separated it apparently into dramatic score and comedic/musical score, but still. And nominations for Best Picture and Best Director? The writing nod seems accurate, this could also happen in 2023. Just like the Golden Globe nomination in the musical/comedy category. The BAFTAs also really loved the film. No surprise here, but yeah, this also looks exaggerated with the Best Picture win and two acting wins. I guess with all these accolades, it even had a shot to win Best Picture at the Oscars then. It also won a PGA award, but a smaller one I think and it won the prestigious ensemble award at the SAG Awards. And it won Best Film at the European Film Awards an and and… It also took home numerous audience awards. This does not surprise me at all though. It is a bit of a crowd pleaser and comes easy for the audiences to identify with the protagonists in this film.

If we look at the cast, you will maybe not find as many famous names as you would have thought, but then again this was not a Hollywood production. Robert Carlyle is easy to identify and he of course also had a lot of success with his long-running fantasy series. Tom Wilkinson is also quite awesome and with him winning the BAFTA I cannot complain at all. Likable actor and I am happy for him. Also gave my favorite performance from the film perhaps, even if I struggled a bit with his character’s transformation from being a bit of an antagonist early on who really was not willing to cooperate with the other folks into a crucial member of the gang. Especially, after the job interview goes wrong because of the others and he does not get the position, I would have thought him to be way too angry and not just join forces immediately afterwards, even if they kinda made it up right away with their gifts then. Wilkinson’s moment when he hides behind the newspaper to not see another character’s memorable genitalia and then still has to take a brief glimpse because curiosity prevails was also a brief highlight. Blink and it’s gone. One thing I liked about the film was also how it did not care about political correctness here and there. Well, it kinda did care and was even progressive with the briefly indicated inclusion of homosexuality. But what I meant with not caring about political correctness was that maybe such a film would have a hard(er) time to get made today with inclusions of how there has to be a definite connection between African Americans or actually African Brits and the size of their genitalia. But yeah, as political correctness is eventually the death of all creativity, I am glad it got included here and this is not the only example.

Nonetheless, you should really not take the story here for facts. It does not feel very realistic or authentic otherwise. Just take the guy who cannot dance at all and how he is still part of the group because of the size of his you know what. Or take the fact that, against all odds, they do come up with the show in the end in fact. The moment there when Carlyle’s character in the presence of his son initially does not want to go on stage felt very strange though. What problems did he have there? I mean everybody else was going and it could not have been about the indecent exposure thingey still. How the son then convinces him was a bit meh and pseudo drama. Same can be said about the general rule they have in so many films that towards the end all has to basically go wrong and all hope has to be lost before the happy ending is still achieved in a way. Like in reality, there simply would not have been hundreds of people/women being ready to buy tickets out of nowhere for this show. At least the last shot was nice. So you can say that the last chapter, last third of the film even perhaps, was not exactly a good example of storytelling. Or only was such to the untrained eye. This makes the screenplay Oscar nomination even more absurd. Simon Beaufoy even won one (and was nominated for another) Academy Awards when he began working with Danny Boyle in the following years.

Director Peter Cattaneo was nominated for his second Oscar here and the first nomination happened in the short film category. Huge success for Cattaneo though as this film was his first theatrical release after a solid deal of television work in Britain. He never really managed to back it up though since then and maybe the title of his follow-up film „Lucky Break“ has a bit of true irony to it when it comes to Cattaneo’s own career. He was born in London, but you can hear the Italian roots in his name. Full-on Italian is of course Uberto Pasolini, the producer who scored the Oscar nomination in the Best Picture category. This is probably also still his most known work. He is the nephew by the way of nope… not another film-defining Pasolini, but Luchino Visconti. Okay, what else is there to say? I guess this is pretty much it. The film is worth seeing and I give it a positive recommendation. I think it delivered more in these small moments always than with the key story pretty much. Rating women out of ten might have been a pretty new thing back then, so this film was a bit of a trailblazer in this department as well. Today, some may find it sexist, but when I say a woman is a 9 out of 10, I say she is pretty stunning and I don’t see anything wrong with that at all, especially because women dress and use make-up to become more stunning. Still, this would have been another controversial inclusion from the film today maybe. Bizarre times we live in. I also liked the moment really early on when the instructor leaves the room and tells the boys to write some job applications that the first thing they do when he is out is grab the card game etc.

Finally, a few more words on the cast: There are some stunning female performers in here as well, especially Emily Woof, even if she did not manage a career as big as Lesley Sharp for example. I saw the latter in another film not too long ago, namely „Naked“, one that is also a part of this British film retrospective that „The Full Monty“ was a part of. I keep thinking „Monté“ first, not sure why. But yeah, also the very small roles are nice to look at, like Kate Rutter. Finally, the child actor in here did a solid job too, just like everybody else, even if I do not know how his career went afterwards. He reminded me of Macaulay Culkin on „Home Alone“ at times. Well, physically I mean. So yeah, it is all about the ensemble cast here, even if it certainly SAG-worthy. The moment when they stand there topless when the bad guys come and want to take away the television was hilarious. The talking about going full monty (I never heard this term before) did not feel too realistic in terms of the fella’s doubts and how quickly they disappear and also the short speech towards the end that the one thing they do, they need to do it right. Also, if we go on with some quick brainstorming here, Carlyle’s lead performance is also not a standout by any means. I give this film here a thumbs-up as a whole and recommend checking it out, especially if you are from Britain, but it is not a too enthusiastic recommendation from my side. The songs included here were mighty fine though, but those were not really an original creation for this film, so it is hard to count them in the film’s favor really. That’s all.