The Full Monty

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The Full Monty
Image:Full monty.jpg original film poster
Directed by	Peter Cattaneo
Produced by	Uberto Pasolini
Written by	Simon Beaufoy
Starring	Robert Carlyle Mark Addy William Snape Steve Huison Tom Wilkinson Paul Barber
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	13 August, 1997
Running time	91 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

This article is about the 1997 film. For the Broadway musical, see The Full Monty

The Full Monty is a 1997 comedy film, a story of six unemployed British steel workers who decide to form a male striptease act. It is set in Sheffield, England, and stars Robert Carlyle, Mark Addy, William Snape, Steve Huison, Tom Wilkinson, Paul Barber, and Hugo Speer.

The screenplay by Simon Beaufoy was adapted from an original story by co-producer Paul Bucknor. The film was directed by Peter Cattaneo.

It won the Academy Award for Original Music Score for Anne Dudley, and was nominated for Best Director, Best Picture, and Best Original Screenplay.

The film inspired a 2000 Broadway musical of the same name.

1 Plot
2 Word usage
- 2.1 "The full monty"
- 2.2 Sheffield slang
3 External links
4 References

[edit] Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Gary "Gaz" Schofield (Robert Carlyle) and Dave (Mark Addy) are desperate to make some money, going so far as to try stealing steel beams from the abandoned factory they used to work at. When Gaz finds out that his ex-wife wants full custody of his young son, Nathan, because he's 700 quid in arrears, Gaz has the idea of stripping to make money. He originally gets the idea from seeing Dave's wife Jean with some friends at a male strip-club, reasoning that if the Chippendales dancers can do it, so can he. Slowly, he assembles a group of similarly desperate men, including his former foreman, Gerald Arthur Cooper (Tom Wilkinson), at the factory he used to work at.

In a sequence of darkly comic scenes, various former co-workers of Gaz and Dave are made to perform a strip-tease for them as their audition. One of the auditioners is invited to stay after he flunks; he says that he still has his children in the car, and "this is no place for kids". The auditioner then glances over at Nathan, who was recruited by his father to work their stereo, before leaving. Other auditioners are hired for their penis size (both mythical, in the case of 'Horse', and real, in the case of Guy).

As the men try practicing, doubts continue to creep in about whether this is the best way to make some money, due to their individual insecurities over their appearances (Dave is overweight, for example). When the men are approached on the street by women who have heard of their show, Gaz declares that their show will be better than the Chippendales dancers because they'll go "the Full Monty" - strip all the way - hence the film's title. Dave quits less than a week before the show, deprecating himself as a "fat bastard" whom no one would want to see in the nude.

While practising, the rest of the men get literally caught with their pants down in the abandoned factory they use for their practice, causing one of the more unconventional chase scenes in modern film, involving most of the main characters running from their pursuers wearing orange leather thongs, and two of the strippers, Guy and Lomper, falling into a homoerotic embrace. All seems lost, with the entire city of Sheffield knowing who the members of Hot Metal are and the cast ready to quit, until the owner of the pub the men want to perform in informs Gaz that he already sold 200 tickets for their show.

With not much left to lose, and a sold-out show, the men decide to go for it for one night. Dave finds his confidence and joins the rest of the group, stripping to Tom Jones' version of You Can Leave Your Hat On.

Spoilers end here.

Despite being a comedy, the film touched on serious subjects such as unemployment, fathers' rights, depression and attempted suicide. In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted The Full Monty the 49th greatest comedy film of all time.

[edit] Word usage

[edit] "The full monty"

There are several possible origins of the phrase the full monty, but the most likely seems to be a full three-piece suit with waistcoat and a spare pair of trousers (as opposed to a standard two-piece suit) from the Leeds-based British tailors Montague Burton. Another reference to the term arises from the large breakfasts eaten by Field Marshall Montgomery.<ref>It's in the dictionary, d'oh!. BBC News. 14 June 2001. Retrieved 7 April 2006.</ref>

Despite the term's origins, 'the full monty' is a phrase generally used in the UK to mean the whole lot, or 'the whole hog', which explains the title. However, in the United States the phrase was unknown prior to the film, and consequently most Americans take the phrase to refer to being in the nude.

[edit] Sheffield slang

A good sprinkling of slang terms are used in the film. Some such as nesh (meaning feeling cold when others don't) are used in other regions whilst words such as jennel (an alley) are local to Sheffield.<ref>:'Putting SY on the wordmap', BBC, 22 August 2005</ref>