The Full Monty (15)

The Full Monty is a brilliant film with a cast of wonderful actors and actresses. A film that people from all walks of life can relate to. Friendship, love and laughter. This is a film that I can watch time and time again and still laugh and cry by the end.

The basic story of this film is very simple, a group of unemployed steel workers in Sheffield in England decide to try to raise money by performing for one night only as male strippers.

Beyond that, there is so much more.

First of all, the film is very very funny. The sight of a group of men of dubious attraction and in varying stages of unfitness trying to become a dancing & stripping troupe is just the start. Side stories like the theft of garden gnomes and the act of offering to fix a man's car so that he can gas himself are classic examples of off-beat British humour.

There is also a lot of warm human interest in this film. We see the relationship between Gaz (Robert Carlyle) and his son and his ex-wife. Also, the relationships between his friends and their wives.

In all cases, the men had lost self respect and, through the act of former workmates getting together again and making new work for themselves they recaptured their self respect, regain the respect of others and most importantly to them, they realise that they are important to their friends and families.

Often films with such a lot of fun and feel good factor leave me feeling that they are too sickly sweet and aim at some lowest common denominator. This was not like that at all, I enjoyed every minute of it.

I first saw this at the cinema and I have never before seen such a happy audience at the end of a film