44 Inch Chest is stuffed full of enough ideas to make six great movies. Unfortunately, none of these potential movies made it on to the screen.
Part discussion on the nature of love, part gangster movie, the film is disappointing in both respects. And worse — it’s boring.
The set up is good enough: Ray Winstone’s East London kingpin finds out that his wife has been having an affair. He promptly kidnaps the cuckold-er and the “action” centres on Winestone’s dilemma on whether or not to ‘do ‘im in’.
A fine cast of British actors munch through an indulgent script peppered with swearing and twee Eastenders clichés towards an unsatisfying final act. The whole thing is like a Mitchell bros. plot line with some extra cursing tossed in and a beaten up hostage trussed up in the corner.
The swearing is aggressive at times, and is possibly intended to be shocking. However, it comes across as trite, and unnecessary to the point that it interrupts the flow of the story.
Earlier this year, Tarantino turned something as simple as ordering a glass milk for a girl into a chilling cinematic moment filled with dread. 44 Inch Chest takes the germ of a claustrophobic psycho-drama and turns it into a bunch of gangsters having a whinge.
The actors do their bit, and they look like they’re having a grand old time of it. Ian McShane in particular gobbles up the screen. He transcends the poverty of the material, pursing his lips and gurning at the camera, breaking the fourth wall with gay abandon — McShane could read the back of a bottle of bleach and the world should shut-up and listen.
But spare a thought for poor Ray Winestone. He’s out there spreading his creative wings and acting his little cockney socks off. Being vulnerable, being kind. Being soulful. Blubbering like a baby. He sells his monologues well. But monologue after monologue does not a movie make. (The way the story is told, I couldn’t believe that this wasn’t adapted from a play.)
But the writers and directors leave Ray out there dead in the water with no story to buoy him along.
Have you seen the trailer for this movie? It’s great.
44 Inch Chest is being sold as a cockney gangster caper — all gritty and cruel with plenty of earthy laughs. And get this: all the crims are old codgers, back together for one last job, running about getting into all sorts of scrapes. A sort of middle-aged Get Carter.
The trailer is better. The movie is a shameful waste of a great British line up.

Here’s the trailer:

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