The Full Monty

The Full Monty

A Revealing Comedy

Welcome to Sheffield, England. Once considered “the city on the move”, twenty-five years later, the steel town has fallen on hard times. The factories have closed and many people find themselves unemployed.

This is where we first meet Gaz (Robert Carlyle) who is “liberating” steel beams from the factory with the help of his friend Dave (Mark Addy) and son Nathan (William Snape). After this plan is foiled, Gaz (after realizing the local club has Chippendales dancers performing) decides that this could be the best way to come up with some quick money when he runs the risk of losing Nathan.

Along the way, Gaz and Dave meet and befriend Lomper (Steve Huison), a factory security guard, who they rescue when he tries (unsuccessfully) to kill himself with exhaust fumes. The trio soon realizes they know nothing about dancing or performing. They desperately try to enlist the help of their former foreman, Gerald (Tom Wilkinson), who happens to take dancing lessons with his wife Linda (Deirdre Castello). Gerald, it seems, has also hidden from his wife the fact that he no longer has a job. Dismissing their idea at first, the group, going as far as kidnapping one of his garden gnomes, finally sells Gerald on the idea. Following auditions, the four man stripping ensemble expands to six with the addition of Guy (Hugo Speer) and Horse (Paul Barber).

The guys soon find themselves practicing in the old factory as well as watching and discussing the dance sequences in “Flashdance” (or, in Dave’s case, criticizing the welding scenes). Things go according to plan until Dave leaves to become a security guard at a local store. Then, when things couldn’t get worse, an officer happens upon the group practicing in the closed factory and the men are promptly arrested (except for two who hightail it out of there). Will the guys dance? And if they do, will it be the full monty?

I’ll admit this has been one of my favorite films since it was released almost ten years ago. And it’s still as fresh and entertaining today as it was then! The idea of out of work men deciding to become strippers to make money was an original idea and at 91 minutes, the story was fast paced with no time to check your watch to see how long it had been playing.

The cast was also a critical part of this movie. While the film focuses on the main plot of six guys who are going to be dancing, each character seems to have an underlying motivation. Whether it’s Gaz trying to keep his son, Dave with his insecurity that starts to affect his relationship with his wife Jean (Lesley Sharp), Gerald desperately trying to find a job to maintain his standard of living with his wife Linda or Lomper’s work with the factory band and/or his mom, each part seems to enhance the story and we get to delve deeper into what is making these characters tick.

“The Full Monty” also has an excellent soundtrack which is brought to the forefront in many scenes when there is no actor dialogue. One of the best scenes in the movie is when the song “Hot Stuff” begins to play when the guys are waiting in line at the job club and they immediately start to go into their dance routine.

The only thing that might have made the movie better would have been some insight into the characters of Guy and Horse. While we get to see aspects of the other characters, we don’t get to know too much about these two.

“The Full Monty” is a smart, fun movie. It’s a “revealing” comedy all the way up to the end!

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