This is nearly a masterpiece. It's like Glengarry Glenn Ross meeting Reservoir Dogs. Brilliant script, dialogue and acting. 8/10 at least! Really, people - don't you recognise a good flick when you see one?
ARE YOU GONNA BARK ALL DAY LITTLE DOGGY... OR ARE YOU GONNA BITE ?
I happen to agree with you; there is a depth to it that lots of people didn't see, or didn't care to see. And the acting, especially from John Hurt and Ian McShane, is a joy to behold.
My theory on the low score is the ad campaign for this movie when it was released made it seem like another British mob movie full of excitement and lots of action. It disappointed the viewers who went to see it, and then they gave it bad word-of-mouth.
I don't think there was a good way to promote it; if it had been advertised as an introspective, wordy, visually beautiful, artistic study on infidelity and machismo, it wouldn't have had many viewers when it was first released.
Now, pretty much all you hear of it is that it's no 'Sexy Beast' or 'Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels' or whatever. Well, that's true; it's not. It's a different kind of film altogether.
Man will never be free until the last king is strangled by the last priest
I thought it was really abysmal.
The least convincing gangsters I've ever seen (other than Winstone, who played his usual character). I mean: Tom Wilkinson!!! Really???
A script that was so flowery and stagey it made your average Pinter play sound like 'Snatch', regardless of how many times they put the word 'c*unt' in. Set in the same old place as 'Delicatessen'.
However deep and heartfelt a film is, if it doesn't carry you off it's a waste of time.
I don't know what you mean by: "it made your average Pinter play sound like 'Snatch', regardless of how many times they put the word *beep* in."
BTW, for some reason they beeped-out the c-word in my reply even though I spelled it exactly as you did - I had to go back and edit in asterisks and it still won't show up except as a beep, lol !
Man will never be free until the last king is strangled by the last priest
The 'beep' nonsense is really annoying - especially if you're commenting about a film that treats its viewers as adults and exposes them to naughty words!!!
What I meant was that 44 IC made the most stagey of stage plays seem gritty and down-to-earth.
It sounded like the writer(s) had spent their time in the Oxford Uni drama club devouring a dictionary of Mockney slang and clichés...
The much-mocked scene where the 'gang' first challenge the young bloke about his offence, through dozens of increasingly fanciful synonyms, was as much as I could take.
44 Inch Chest probably would have made a good stage play, and yes, it was wordy. I thought the cinematography was beautifully done though so I'm glad they filmed it but I do understand this film wasn't popular with many folks. I guess I was confused that you mentioned Pinter since he's well-known for using the c-word in his work, ha!
Man will never be free until the last king is strangled by the last priest
@ nicklpool, I couldn't agree more, this was a total waste of 90 minutes of my life. All through I kept thinking it's gonna start to really bubble soon and then this will absolutely boil over, It didn't, it never got out of first gear and the finale was a masterpiece of the totally unrealistic.
Hurt - as the lover is allowed to simply leave with his hands and legs still tied "Don't you get blabby". Ha!, It just isn't worth discussing, it's taken enough of my day as it is.
Suffice to say, It's like they started with a great idea, found some great actors in McShane, Winstone and Hurt, but then somehow forgot to write the script. 5.7 that's about 2.0 more than I give it.
My theory on the low score is the ad campaign for this movie when it was released made it seem like another British mob movie full of excitement and lots of action. It disappointed the viewers who went to see it, and then they gave it bad word-of-mouth.
I don't think there was a good way to promote it; if it had been advertised as an introspective, wordy, visually beautiful, artistic study on infidelity and machismo, it wouldn't have had many viewers when it was first released.
You can easily imagine the conversation though. Marketing drones presented with a film of this nature. Terrified, there was a meeting where it was decided to attempt to perpetrate a little light fraud and consciously mis-sell a film as something it wasn't in the hope of making at least some of their money back.
Didn't much work. My understanding is that box-office was minimal despite their trailer-based shenanigans. Maybe in future they'll smarten-up, go for the long-game, stick to presenting an honest depiction of any film and just letting its true audience easily identify it as something which would appeal to them.
'44 Inch Chest' is one of my favourite films. Based on this thread, I chopped-up an alternate trailer just to see what it might have looked like, posted it here:
http://rooksby.blogspot.com
I do accept it's unlikely this version would have immediately set the box-office on fire. But I doubt they'd be too much worse off
... as opposed to the Lock Stock Snatch official version which left those that did pay to see a very different film so clearly angry and disappointed and have the film then saddled with toxic word of mouth, they'd instead have had an enthusiastic 'cult' audience spreading the word and perhaps building an audience value equivalent or greater (especially on DVD/BluRay) to those that originally got tricked into buying a cinema ticket. Would have at least added an extra 3.6 to its imdb rating.
I saw the film first, then the trailer. I doubt it would have happened the other way around. The original trailer was short-sighted and panicked, and to this day is the principal reason as to why this film is under-rated.
I wholeheartedly agree with you. This is a modern masterpiece and both the average critic (no surprise) and user score is tragically low. The dialogue is so sharp and invigorating and has a significant amount of humor which many have seemed to miss. I just think this is too dialogue heavy and sophisticated for the majority's pedestrian tastes.
shareThe acting was pretty good. The writing was over dependent on profanity. The film was devoid of any human warmth and had nothing uplifting or aspirational too it. Thoroughly depressing despite the quality of the acting.
share"Sophisticated" dialogue.....?? Mmm....
shareWHOLEHEARTEDLY AGREE!!!! Watching it again tonight (perhaps 6th time?) and I'm just floored that this film never got the recognition that it deserves.
shareThe shills must be out in force.
This movie is nothing but non-stop, boring dialogue, about basically nothing important. With a bunch of swearing to break it up.
I'd rather watch "Manos, the hands of time."
Literally.