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Saturday 12 June 2010

44 Inch Chest:A Measure of Revenge for A Penny …

Can I be honest, here?

Can I … ?

You’ve probably guessed, by now, that I’m not a football fan.

But one surely has to ask if Fabio Capello made the right decision in putting Robert Green in goal, tonight.

If I’ve understood things correctly, goalies aren’t exactly supposed to let the ball in.

Oh, don’t get me wrong.

It’s not like I actually went and watched it. But it does seem to crop up on the news-pages …

I’ve also got to confess that Movie Night Adrian isn’t a football fan, either.

And happened to have a copy of the 2009, Malcolm Venville directed film, 44 Inch Chest.

I think Adrian’s found something of a treasure …

Seriously.

Now, if I gave you the basic plot idea of a film, what would you expect?

44 Inch Chest opens with an extreme close up of Ray Winstone, in the films central rôle of Colin Diamond, a gangster who comes home to wife, Liz — played by Joanne Whalley — who has some … news … for him.

That’s she’s met and fallen in love with another man.

Understandably, Colin doesn’t exactly react well to this.

Would you?

I don’t think I have, in the past.

I think many of us would be sympathetic.

Sympathetic, certainly …

Colin’s friend are …

They helpfully kidnap Liz’s lover and smuggle him to an abandoned terrace house, where he stays mostly in an otherwise empty wardrobe — or tied to a chair — for the rest of the film.

You can possibly imagine the sort of treatment he gets, can’t you … ?

It’s not good …

But 44 Inch Chest doesn’t exactly stick to the script.

Or, rather, it — and the rather top-notch cast — stick very much to the script.

The script just doesn’t go in the direction you’d expect from a revenge-driven, gangster film, it really doesn’t.

•••••

That’s actually quite a good thing, I think.

Because I think what Adrian and I have watch, tonight, is possibly one of the best films I think we’ve seen in a long time.

And, as you can imagine, that cover’s a lot of territory.

Actually, Adrian had an interesting point to make.

When he mentioned that he’d borrowed 44 Inch Chest from Brentwood Library, he mentioned that he felt it might be best to watch it with a mostly single-sex audience.

I think he’s right: there’s one or two scenes in 44 Inch Chest that women may find …

If not objectionable or uncomfortable, then certainly cause for comment.

Hmmmm …

You know, that could well be a good excuse to re-watch 44 Inch Chest in female company.

Along with a copy of Jodie Foster’s The Accursed. It’d probably be an interesting comparison …








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