First, since perspective counts, I am a woman. I suspect that my being a woman is part of the reason that I like this film more than "Sexy Beast"---which usually gets more stars. "44 Inch Chest" is a lot like one of those movies where sorority sisters get together after 20 years apart and spill their guts and all walk away feeling better about themselves and each other, because they are no longer pretending. Except in this film, the "sorority sisters" are underworld criminals who like to say "f--k" a lot. I say "f--k" a lot, too, so I never felt like getting up and leaving the theater, because of the profanity. And a good thing, too. Because the last ten minutes or so of this movie are among the most powerful and true that I have ever seen.Women are not the only one's who hate themselves. And, by hating themselves, I mean hating their emotions. It is just that men and women are taught to hate different emotions. Women are allowed to grieve but not to express anger. That is why somewhere near the end of a chick flick, all the women get mad. Really mad. And then they laugh and feel so much better.In the case of men, anger is 100% fine. But men are not allowed to grieve. So, we see a roomful of tough guys do what guys are supposed to do---get brutal. And brutal again. And brutal some more---- Until the end, when we realize that all that anger and brutality is meant to hide the sorrow and tears that men are never supposed to shed.Ian McShane is wonderful in this movie, in large part, because he plays a character who knows himself. And who is gently nudging the hero, Ray Winstone to know himself, too. That makes McShane the Master and Winstone the monk in need of enlightenment. Enlightenment, when it comes, is painful, but it feels good, too.If the violence in this film failed to satisfy, maybe it is because the violence was never meant to satisfy. Maybe the film maker's goal all along was to make us cry.

I, along with most viewers, really enjoyed the laugh-out-loud madness of SEXY BEAST, the previous Cockney gangster film starring Ray Winstone and written by Louis Mellis and David Scinto. When I read about this follow-up, it looked like the same team were ready to tackle a RESERVOIR DOGS style storyline. I was up for it, but it turns out the writers weren't.44 INCH CHEST has possibly the most boring and convoluted plot I can remember watching. It takes ages, and a lot of effort on the part of the actors, to get everyone together into a single setting, building tension with the question - will Ray torture and kill the guy strapped to a chair, the guy who's been conducting an affair with his wife? The film had everything going for it. Winstone in an emotional role, Ian McShane and John Hurt playing to type. Then what happens? It all falls apart. The interesting cast members are made to go and sit outside a door for the rest of the film's duration. It sounds like I'm kidding, but I'm not. So little then happens, the film is reduced to flashbacks and infuriating fantasy sequences that develop nothing of the story.Having watched this, I'm afraid to say it looks like SEXY BEAST was nothing more than a fluke and the writers one-hit wonders.

"'Cause I'm a man, I got my pride, Don't need no woman to hurt me inside. I need love, like any other - So go on and leave me! Leave me for another!" --Good Lovin' Gone Bad, Bad Company.I think 44 INCH CHEST is trying to set some kind of record for saying the c-word. That's why I love it so. It's British. It's brutish. It's c-word-ish.Busting at the gray-skied seams with testosterone, 44 INCH CHEST is as blackly humorous and yet as feverishly dramatic as only a cockney London thrasher could be. It's about honor, loyalty, fidelity and flesh-tearing revenge. It's about the measure of Manhood. How far would you go to prove your measure?The formidable Ray Winstone stars as Colin Diamond, a principled, loving husband and father, who has just lost his wife, Liz (Joanne Whalley) to another man. Movie opens with Colin lying seemingly dead on the floor of his self-wrecked house, while Nilsson's "Without You" flutters on the soundtrack. Shattered, almost unable to speak coherently, let alone make life-changing decisions, Colin gathers four friends in a ramshackle rendezvous den to work through his pain - and to decide how to kill the man who stole his wife; the man who is even now locked in a cupboard before them, an armoire, a "44 inch chest," if you will. John Hurt, as cockney vicious as a starving pitbull, is cantankerous Old Man Peanut, who just wants blood - and to keep his arse away from suave-gay Meredith, played by Ian McShane with pimp swagger and cynical detachment; Tom Wilkinson is amiable, pragmatic Archie, who still lives with his mum; and Stephen Dillane is Mal, the impetuous muscle, "Let's kill 'im now - just give me the word, Colin!" The amazing thing about this movie that reads like a stage play is that none of the characters have backstories! They just appear in this room, driving their brutal dialog down Tasty Street, and we surmise they are gangsters, but they could very well be just a bunch of schoolmates. The way they stand up for their wronged compatriot could be applied to any profession; it is simply what Real Men would do under the circumstances. They never question why they are there and none of them is impatient to leave for other pressing appointments; we know innately they would follow Colin into hell. We see the capture of "Loverboy" (Melvil Poupaud) from his waitering day job - Mal headlocking him into a van while distressed patrons look on. They eventually drag him out of the cupboard, bloodied and beaten, and plant him on a chair where they berate him and threaten him, awaiting Colin's ultimate decision. As the story delves via flashback into Colin's harried night, his wife's confession and his decidedly unmanly reaction - he bashed the name of her French lover out of her - the bloodlust of the friends is stoked, and we seem to be tilting toward hell after all. Revenge will be sweet. As the night wears on and Colin enters into fantasy scenes in his head (which include his wife appearing and tending to Loverboy, while his friends size her up in front of him, swapping roles, accusing, bantering, badgering), we realize that each of the friends is a different facet of Colin's personality (the bellicose, impatient Old Prick, the boastful, cocky Muscle, the stalwart Good Friend and the personality that is completely insular, removed from the world of women - the Gaylord) and that they "complete" him - but not in a good way, as their constant profane, baleful repartee serves to confuse him all the more. We realize also that Colin seeing his wife touching Loverboy's wounds so intimately (as Peanut says, "They might as well be doing it right in front of him!") is his mind trying to purge itself of that image, of the pain of knowing this went on behind his back... forgiveness may just be sweeter. Eventually, after gripping monologues, morbidly humorous asides, and swearing the likes your drill sergeant wouldn't believe, with the aid of his friends and his fantasies (some might call it "therapy") barrel-chested Colin goes further than he has ever gone before, to make a decision that proves the true measure of his manhood...

A clever film, missold as a gangster flick. There are no gangsters in this film. Used car salesman Colin comes home from work and his wife confesses to cheating on him. He loses the plot and beats the crap out of her. This is a film about what goes through his mind afterward. Revenge fantasies mixed with god knows what, and a bit of commentary on the failings of macho culture. As a cinematic portrayal of how a man feels after being cheated on, it's a benchmark, I can't think of a film that does a better job of it. It's a man's film for sure, not pretty other than being well lit, and most of the facets of Colin's personality / most of the other characters are tosspots of the highest order.