The Full Monty

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General		Extras
Category	Comedy	Theatrical Trailer(s)	Yes, 1 - 1.33:1, not 16x9, Dolby Digital 2.0
Rating		Other Trailer(s)	None
Year Released	1997	Commentary Tracks	None
Running Time	87:47 minutes	Other Extras	Menu Animation
RSDL/Flipper	RSDL (61:48)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region	2,4	Director	Peter Cattaneo
Studio Distributor	Fox Searchlight Pictures  Fox	Starring	Robert Carlyle Tom Wilkinson Mark Addy
Case	Transparent Amaray
RRP	$39.95	Music	Anne Dudley

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	MPEG	None
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Dolby Digital	2.0
16x9 Enhancement		Soundtrack Languages	English (Dolby Digital 2.0 , 192 Kb/s)
Theatrical Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Macrovision	Yes?	Smoking	Yes
Subtitles	Czech Danish English for the Hearing Impaired Finnish Hebrew Hungarian Icelandic Norwegian Polish Portuguese Swedish	Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    Was it worth the wait (for those impatient people wishing to rush off to place their orders)? Yes and no.

    For those (very) few who have not yet had the pleasure of indulging in this fine piece of British film making, the story goes something like this. The setting is Sheffield in England, a town heavily built upon its steel industry - an industry that has been in decline for years. Being your typical English industrialized city wearing the problems of chronic unemployment all too apparently, things are not really pretty. This is the dank, grimy backdrop into which are introduced six rather unlikely characters, all suffering the degradations of unemployment in their own way. First there is Gary Scholfield (Robert Carlyle), a divorcee suffering the pangs of custody problems with respect to his son Nathan (William Snape). Then we have Dave Althorpe (Mark Addy), suffering the insecurities of his inadequacies as an unemployed husband - adding to which is his slightly portly physique. Throw into the mix Gerald Cooper (Tom Wilkinson), their former foreman who despite six months of unemployment has been unable to tell his wife and keeps up the charade of still being employed - thereby permitting his wife to continue spending money they do not have. Add in Lomper (Steve Huison), a member of the still-together works brass band and somewhat suicidal security guard at the plant, Guy (Hugo Speer) who really has not much of anything apart from a Dirk Diggler sized weapon and Barrington "Horse" Mitchell (Paul Barber) whose great claim to fame is his ability to actually dance. These are your six main culprits, but they are surrounded by a bunch of wonderful cameo roles. The broad story is that they are all broke and in need of money, so when Gary finds himself on the end of a demand for 700 quid of maintenance or else he cannot see his son, things really get desperate. After discovering that the local ladies including their wives and friends have paid good money to watch a Chippendale show at the local Working Men's Club, Gary hatches a plan for the six of them to do the same thing. But, how do six of the most unlikely lads on earth go about getting it all together enough to get out on stage and strip in front of hundreds of screaming women? That is what you will find out, especially as they decide to go one better by going The Full Monty. But, that is only the framework for this story and this is so much more than just six guys getting their kit off on stage.

    This is a beautifully woven story of relationships. Relationships between both sides of divorced couples, between the fathers and sons of divorces, between couples trying to keep their marriage alive, between couples unable to confront the truth together, between people isolated by modern city living and between six guys getting to know and understand each other. It is a wonderfully woven story of the degradations caused by long term unemployment, and the reality of coping with the resultant degradation and frustration. In many ways it is a story about the triumph of the human spirit. It also happens to be a bloody funny film, contrary to and because of the setting. This film contains some of the most ludicrously memorable scenes seen in films of the last ten years. My sister never fails to keel over with laughter at the Gerald job interview scene in which the garden gnomes star. The classic scene of the guys in the queue at the dole office gently starting to dance to the sound of Donna Summer's Hot Stuff. The incredibly silly attempts of Gerald to teach the guys to dance in the classic Arsenal Offside Trap scene. I guess we all have our own favourite moments from this film.

    But the well-crafted story - which incidentally copped an Oscar nomination in 1998 - is only the foundation of the film. It requires the performers to really make it work, and they do so exceptionally well. There is not a duff performance here and it has to be one of the most consistently high standard films across the entire cast, including the most minor of support roles, that I have seen. Indeed, this was even recognized by their peers as the film won the Screen Actors Guild award in 1998 for most outstanding performance by a cast. Special mentions? William Snapes as young Nathan Schofield is absolutely brilliant - wonderfully comedic in his timing and delivery, as well as the nuances of his performance. Tom Wilkinson is superb as the poor sod that is unable to let his wife know that he is out of work - and has to teach the guys how to dance. But you could just about pick any role here and wax lyrical about the job that was done. Every character is utterly believable and there is nothing contrived here at all. A superb directorial job from Peter Cattaneo, not just in bringing the performances out of the cast but also in the way he used the locations available to him. Whilst it may mean little to people outside of England, little things like the canal scene all reek of familiarity: indeed, this took me back many years to my younger days living in Wolverhampton in the middle of The Black Country in England. That canal is soooooo familiar it is almost spooky.

    I could really go on about this film all day long, it is such a delight. I have rarely had so much immediate rapport with a film, and this just exudes quality and believability from start to finish. If you doubt my view on this matter though, perhaps you should wander through the Internet Movie Database awards listing for the film - it is littered with wins and nominations for best something. The Full Monty is one of the greatest character-driven films to emerge in the last twenty years in my humble opinion and sure to be a film that I shall continue to return to for many years. It is certainly a favourite in our house and the arrival of the DVD is most timely as the VHS tape is getting a very well-worn look to it: my parents nick it for viewing so often that it may as well stay with them. It demonstrates what is so damn good about British films and what is so damn bad about American films. Definitely a very welcome addition to the Region 4 discography.

Video

    The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and it is 16x9 enhanced, unlike its Region 1 cousin.

    The main surprise to me was how flat the transfer looked at times, very much lacking in depth. Now I appreciate that this is partly the result of the way the film was shot, but I really would have expected a bit more dimensionality to the picture than is often the case here. This introduces something of an inconsistent look to the film than I would have otherwise expected. There were also sequences where the image was noticeably more diffuse than I would have expected, which again introduces something of an inconsistent look to the transfer. However, at its best this is a nicely sharp and fairly well detailed transfer. Clarity was generally pretty good, although there were a couple of instances where it looked like grain may be a minor problem. Shadow detail could perhaps have been a little better on a couple of occasions, but this is again a reflection of how the film was shot. The result is quite a contrasting effort that is used effectively to emphasize aspects of the film, mainly lead characters and the situations they are in. There does not appear to be any low level noise problems with the transfer.

    Given the dank, dingy feel that was being evoked by the film, naturally I was not expecting anything too great as far as vibrant colours were concerned, which is good as bright primary colours are not exactly the forte of this film at all! Nonetheless this is a superbly vibrant colour palette that beautifully evokes the feel of any of the big cities of the industrialized parts of England (such as in The Midlands, Yorkshire, and Lancashire). The tone is quite rich throughout, although there is never anything approaching oversaturation of colours, and there is nothing out of character with the setting.

    There did not appear to be any significant MPEG artefacts in the transfer. There did not appear to be any significant film-to-video artefacts in the transfer. There were a few instances of extremely minor aliasing but these were barely noticeable. There were very few instances of film artefacts in the transfer and this was a clean transfer as befits a film of such recent vintage.

    This is an RSDL formatted disc which is most unusual for a film of such comparatively modest length. The layer change comes at 61:48 and is during a scene change: it is noticeable but pretty decently handled and is not a real disturbance to the flow of the film.

Audio

    There is just the one audio track on this DVD, an English Dolby Digital 2.0 surround-encoded soundtrack.

    The dialogue was clear and easy to understand throughout - although I can imagine that those not so familiar with some of the stronger British accents may have a little difficulty here and there. This was apparently a problem in the United States and so they inflicted an Americanized soundtrack upon the film, which is thankfully not an option here. [Ed. The R1 version of this DVD carries both the US and the UK theatrical dubs].

    There was no problem at all as far as audio sync is concerned with the transfer.

    The music for the film, which really is not so much a score but rather a collection of some great songs, comes from Anne Dudley, who won the Oscar for Best Music, Original Musical or Comedy Score in 1998 for this effort. It is the songs though that make this all work so well - and any score that uses Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel's glorious Come Up And See Me (Make Me Smile) is bound to garner high respect in my book. One of the better soundtrack albums of the 1990s resulted from this film, believe me.

    Okay, it is not a 5.1 effort, but that is about all you can complain about here. The soundtrack is a nice open, natural-sounding effort that is completely free of distortion, or indeed any real problems at all. Sorry if that is a boringly short summation of the soundtrack, but really that is all that needs to be said. There is no action from the bass channel at all and limited action from the rear surround channels too, but it is otherwise quite a good effort.

Menu

Theatrical Trailer (1:31)

• the bastardized Americanized soundtrack. [Ed. The R1 version of this DVD carries both the US and the UK theatrical dubs].

• 16x9 enhancement

    A good if slightly problematic video transfer.

    A good audio transfer.

    An uninspiring extras package.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall

© Ian Morris (have a laugh, check out the bio)
1st June 2000