The Full Monty (1997)

To me, this movie is perfection.

How sad is this?

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

The Full Monty is a charming feel good comedy but with dark undertones. Sheffield might had been once a city on the move thanks to its steel industry but by the 1990s it was facing industrial ruin. The factories were closing.Gary (Robert Carlyle) is unemployed and behind his child maintenance payments. With his best friend Dave (Mark Addy) he is reduced to stealing steel girders for spare cash.When they stumble upon women lining up at a working men's club to see The Chippendales, they hit upon the idea of doing their own strip show but go fully naked.They get a group of six together but they really cannot dance and some of them do not have the physique. Only Gerald (Tom Wilkinson) their former foreman has dance training and sets about teaching the rest the dance moves.As time goes on the men bond as they deal with issues such as being in debt, without a job or relationship problems.In some ways the film was inspired by The Boys from the Blackstuff without too much of the black comedy and grimness although it does have raw and rowdy humour.Robert Carlyle does a good northern accent more chipper than Chippendale who is confident until the time to start the show comes. Mark Addy and Hugo Speer became well known faces after this film. Horse played by Paul Barber is good fun as the veteran disco dancer.

Absolutely love this film. The story line is excellent. I feel it helped me learn about the time they shut down the steel works and how people struggled for work. Loved the characters and personalities. Very British film, which I think is always the best. The film have very serious topics involved which makes the story feel so real. That is the sad and real side of story but comedy the overrides the seriousness making it a funny and true film. I would definitely recommend this for friend. This is a good film for cheering yourself up and not feeling as alone in the world when you are struggling with life in the UK.

The Full Monty is not just for women, Britons, and homosexuals. I am non of these and I found this to be a great flick. It just happens to have male strippers from England. The movie is about the struggle to make ends meet, loyalty, and self esteem. These are serious issues, but only Brits could give each a silver lining. Well not just Brits, they just do it the best.As a comedy, I did not find the movie to be very funny. Some bits were humorous, but not much. It was mostly "smart," rather than "funny." It is rare for me to like a comedy that I did not find funny as this one did. Mostly just Brits get this kind of humour as it is plagued with British slang. I don't care that it wasn't very funny, it was still amusing, enjoyable and clever. Judging from the reviews, I might be the only one that thinks so.The Full Monty is about a group of men who worked at a steel plant that went down under and are now unemployed. Gary "Gaz" (Carlyle) loves his son and must find employment for unpaid child support payments in order to gain any sort of custody and wants to be with him no matter what. But his son is reluctant to bear witness to his father's misadventures. This subplot is perhaps the best one. His best friend, Dave (Addy) thinks that his wife has fallen out of love with him and must deal with being overweight. They stumble upon a strip club and see hundreds of women paying to see Chippendales. They get the idea to to become strippers themselves and go full monty (completely nude) to offer something new. They find the most unlikely guys to help: Their former foreman and choreographer, Gerald (Wilkinson), has lied to his wife about having a job and is worried about his impotence; Lomper is an ugly redhead who once contemplated suicide; Horse is a former disco dancer who still has the moves but not the looks; and Guy can help out most with the looks. That is what I love about this, the lead characters (Gaz, Dave, Gerald) are deeply written and the rest are deep enough and memorable. Despite being an English movie, there is no real offensive nudity. Just a few scenes with shirtless guys and butts briefly shown. That was the one element I was unsure about before watching this. I'm sure the Unrated version is worse. As a movie, I liked how everything was built up. But what makes this such a wonderful film is the themes of unemployment, loyalty and self-esteem. A bunch of guys with no jobs have to resort to do something anybody can do just to make a buck. In the beginning, we see Gaz and Dave stealing metal from the plant and trying to sell them. That is how desperate they are. The guys are too scrawny and too ugly to be strippers, but they do not care. Gaz needs the money fast or else he will lose the most important thing in his life. The others need money in order to keep their pride alive and keep their families together. That is were the self-esteem factor ties in. They know they're ugly and not lean, so they have second thoughts about following through. Dave is overweight, so he has the biggest problem image-wise. They have hit the rock bottom, so they feel completely worthless. At first none of them are up to it, but they have nothing to lose so they take risks and build up their confidence. Admirability towards these men grows. They are loyal and band together, but must stay together when the going gets tough. Each have their own reasons for joining, but all have the same reasons for thinking about quitting. Each man is a piece of the puzzle that is needed for a successful show and a rebuild in their lives.Not just one of my favourite British comedies, one of my favourites in general.

Gaz (Robert Carlyle), his best buddy Dave (Mark Addy), and his son are relegated to petty crime after everybody is laid off at the steel plant in Sheffield. They are struggling to find any jobs. Then one night, Gaz got the idea of stripping from a Chipendales show. He gathers a hopeless jobless crew including the former foreman Gerald (Tom Wilkinson) who has yet to tell his wife that he was laid off 6 months ago.Robert Carlyle is a likable schemer, and Mark Addy is a charming fool. Together they make a hilarious duo. The jokes are smart and funny. I love that Dave complains about Jennifer Beals' welding in 'Flashdance'. It is the marriage between the seriousness of the hopelessness of unemployment, and the embarrassment of male nudity. And just as it gets you laughing, it breaks your heart.