Baby take off your coat
Real slow
Take off your shoes
I’ll help you take off your shoes
Baby take off your dress
Yes, yes, yes
You can leave your hat on

Deeelicious stuff, sweetie.

Drat, how in the hell did we miss such a kickass comedy all these years.

Must stop associating with low-life ignoramasses (take that neologism, punks) like our readers.

Even if we had to turn on the subtitles to catch the hard-to-follow Yorkshire accent, The Full Monty (1997) is a riveting entertainer that, alas, the Bollywood bozos are now regurgitating as Desi Boyz, 14 years after the original version debuted to much acclaim.

Fun Movie

Directed by Peter Cattaneo and featuring a cast unknown to most Indians, The Full Monty, made on a modest budget of $3.5 million, was a big hit, both in the UK and internationally.

If you schmucks insist on knowing, the movie stars Robert Carlyle, Mark Addy, William Snape, Steve Huison, Tom Wilkinson, Paul Barber and Hugo Speer. Recognize any of them, eh?

The movie is set in the Yorkshire town of Sheffield aka Steel City for its steel mills that ushered in prosperity to a lot of people in the area.

Well, all good things of life must come to an end sooner or later.

Bad times fall upon many of the locals when the steel mills shutter leaving behind the empty factories or, as Gaz, one of the principal characters puts it, ‘scrap’ in the form of the laid off employees.

Unwilling to accept low-paying jobs and with nothing much to do except idling away at the local unemployment office playing cards and smoking, Gaz (Robert Carlyle) decides to form a Male strippers group.

Yes, a Male strippers group for a only-gals audience. 😉

And Gaz ropes in his reluctant pal Dave (Mark Addy) and former buddies from the steel mill including the foreman Gerald (Tom Wilkinson).

For Gaz, it’s do or die strip or die. The stripper group is his last shot at making good money.

You see, his financial situation has turned perilous – he’s separated from his wife and unless he can come up with 700-quid he’ll lose joint custody of his young son Nate, played with infinite charm by William Snape.

The kid is adorable and while he doesn’t speak much in the film his expressions and fondness for his rather weird dad is discernible.

The situation is pretty grim for the others as well including Gerald, who’s been ‘going to work’ even after being laid off.

Like so many fine comedies, The Full Monty has a strong touch of pathos at its core.

In the love of Gaz for his son Nathan.

And for a group of grownup men to consider and ultimately take up stripping, amidst jeers from the town-folk, to improve their financial prospects is a hard road to traverse.

But for the audience it makes for a fun watch.

Paul Barber auditioning as ‘Horse” was terrific, as he does a superb dance to Wilson Pickett’s Land of a Thousand Dances song in a brief one-minute scene.

The acting is first class overall but Robert Carlyle outshines everyone.

Lovely Soundtrack

Man, this is one soundtrack the likes of which all ye putzheads ain’t never seen.

Nor heard.

Contains some of the top chart-busting numbers like Donna Summers Hot Stuff, Wilson Pickett’s Land of a 1000 Dances, Tom Jones You Can Leave your Hat On and more.

Any surprise then that the only Oscar (after receiving a total of four nominations) The Full Monty bagged was for the music. But keep in mind that its Oscar rival that year was the Titanic!

The Full Monty is available at most county libraries in the U.S. and at Netflix.

Now, don’t you feel embarrassed about turning on the subtitles. It ain’t regular English here folks.

Your favorite blog SearchIndia.com strongly recommends The Full Monty.

Oh yeah, the guys go the Full Monty at the end 😉

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Desi Boyz Review – Monstrous Mutation of Full Monty

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