44 Inch Chest is worth seeing for the acting alone. But no matter how well this impressive cast handles the expertly-written dialogue from Mellis and Scinto, they can’t make up for the underwhelming outcome of the story.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 22, 2023

A deliberately stagy rumination on the price of revenge.

| Feb 10, 2012

...an uneven yet engrossing drama that benefits substantially from the efforts of its unusually impressive roster of performers.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 3, 2010

I can't help thinking it's a waste of talent.

| Apr 30, 2010

It boasts a crackerjack cast and a richly dense script, and scenes of inspired fantasy and hallucinatory nightmarish power.

| Apr 30, 2010

As an exercise in gender de-construction it's a crude bit of irony.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Apr 29, 2010

A verbose exercise in profanity that wastes the talent of a bunch of fine actors who sit around and discuss how best to restore the bruised ego of one of their hardened gang.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Apr 27, 2010

This talky crime drama is a searing examination of masculinity and misogyny that is littered with rampant profanity and lashings of humour.

| Original Score: 3.5/4 | Apr 26, 2010

The title suggests an exploration of the macho notion of masculinity, and while the theme filters through, it is less than satisfying; the film also lacks layers, making it a one-note movie with the odd flash of wit

| Apr 24, 2010

Filled with actorly weight, this top-heavy film needs a back brace

| Original Score: B | Mar 25, 2010

A smashingly acted but dramatically thin expose of men behaving badly that isn't nearly as revelatory as it seems to think it is.

Full Review | Mar 19, 2010

Writers Louis Mellis and David Scinto seem to have been hoping for something along the lines of those Quentin Tarantino scenes where thugs kvetch about pop music and cinnamon buns, but the 44 Inch dialogue is not as clever as Tarantino's...

Full Review | Original Score: 1/4 | Feb 26, 2010

With violence on the menu, it's a guilty pleasure to watch these stage-trained hambones unleash a rapid-fire roundelay of righteous indignation.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | Feb 25, 2010

The frequently profane dialogue suggests David Mamet on an off-night (so does Malcolm Venville's claustrophobia-inducing direction), though the first-rate cast works hard.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 11, 2010

Ninety-four minutes of stagey locker-room philosophizing. Sets a record for use of the word "cunt." Each of the characters exemplifies a different stereotype of male behavior, none of them very interesting.

| Feb 10, 2010

Every now and then there are perfect moments in cinema. The opening of 44 Inch Chest is one of them.

| Original Score: 9/10 | Feb 9, 2010

Venville keeps the camera back and the images wet, brown, and moldy while the characters scowl and spew vitriol at their foe, allowing us to see how they have nothing behind them.

| Feb 5, 2010

It's an interesting spectacle, but not enough to carry a movie.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 4, 2010

The whole thing feels like middle-period Mamet with English accents, and not much to say.

| Original Score: 2/4 | Feb 4, 2010

Is this a documentary about a porn professional? Or a gym rat? Neither. It's a stagy, half-entertaining, half-tedious acting competition between five excellent Englishmen.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Feb 4, 2010