The Full Monty (1997) Movie Info
Duration : 91 minutes (1 hour 31 minutes) Rated R of language and some nudity
Genre : Comedy, Drama
The Full Monty – Six Men. Without anything to lose. Who dare to go…
The movie is loosely based on the play ‘Ladie's Night,’ written by Jacques Collard, Anthony McCarten and Stephen Sinclair. ‘Full Monty’ is a typical British slang expression for ‘going all the way’ with taking all your clothes off. It is a humorous and at the same time sensitive portrayal of the prevailing turmoil in the society, which is applicable to any part of the world.
Set in the Sheffield, England, a small town once known as ‘City of Steel,’ is now virtually losing its status and unemployment is prevalent everywhere. The story is about a group of jobless steel workers get together to form a strip show to make money. One among them is Gaz (Robert Carlyle), a divorced father, who desperately needs the money to win the admiration of his young son. Like Gaz, each of his friends, has his own problem and everything is directly connected to the jobless status. In such distressed moment, Gaz and his friends decide to do perform ‘strip show’ in the women-only bar. What follows is a string of secret rehearsals, media exposure, humiliation and the police arrest. Despite the embarrassment, they get ready and enter the stage to go full monty…
Out of its 4 nominations, the lone Oscar was grabbed by (Anne Dudley) its music department.
The six lead stars did in fact perform a full-frontal strip tease in front of 400 extras. Director Peter Cattaneo described it as ‘a one-take deal’!
For this final sequence, the choreographer was lying just in front of the stage, out of sight of the cameras, shouting out instructions to the actors.
Simon Beaufoy’s script is another praiseworthy aspect of this film and it clearly illustrates the ‘mirror image’ of the troublesome society.
The film is not about the nudity or lust. It actually asserts the triumph of spirit over adversity with its well-conceived plot.
Smartly exploiting the ‘sex appeal’ of the story, the filmmaker admirably came out with a movie with rich substance – a fine balancing act.
Written By
Srini