The Full Monty

Comment:
It seems that every year at least one english movie makes its way through the many american movies and gains success of public and critics. Last year I enjoyed Trainspotting which was a strong but good movie, featuring a few incredibly silly moments. This year we have The Full Monty, a much lighter comedy which didn't impress me at all.

The origin of the 'full monty' saying apparently comes from the habit of general Montgomery to have a quite substantial breakfast (the typical cooked English breakfast) and so usually refers to something 'complete' or 'abundant', in this case an integral male striptease. However, unlike professional strippers, the characters of the movie are not young and healthy boys but actually ageing, fat and far from fascinating men whose only way to compete in this business is to go 'the full monty'!

The characters are slowly introduced as the story goes on, all of them are unemployed (due to the failure of the steel industry that was the main source of occupation in their city) and they are seeking for a job. One day, a group of professional strippers, the Chippendales, have a successful show in a local night-club and so, after a quick calculation, the main characters decide that even a single performance would give them enough money to 'survive' for some time...

While the underlying story is quite dramatic, the movie has a very frivolous profile, all the characters are portrayed in a funny way and even their personal problems are dealt in a superficial and trivial way. It's probably this mix of drama and lightness that I didn't like at all. There are some definitely funny moments but they are not enough to uphold the whole movie. Moreover, I couldn't find a reason for various sub-plots that, given the comical approach of the movie, are not developed enough nor they are granted any completely serious purpose.

Another thing I didn't really like was the attitude of some of the characters towards occupation: some of them were actively searching for a job while a few others seemed to prefer to stay unemployed (and think about how to become a stripper) rather than working in poorly paid roles that someone offered them more than once. This means that if this movie had to give me a message, I got a rather distorted one!