Buns of steel

Peter Cattaneo flashes some cheek

By Alicia Potter

THE FULL MONTY. Directed by Peter Cattaneo. Written by Simon Beaufoy. With Robert Carlyle, Tom Wilkinson, Mark Addy, Steve Huison, Paul Barber, Hugo Speer, Lesley Sharp, and William Snape. A Fox Searchlight Pictures release. At the Nickelodeon and the Kendall Square.

Thanks to the controversial testosterone rush In the Company of Men, the male mystique has everybody once again scratching their heads. But what about the male physique? British director Peter Cattaneo exposes the naked truth in The Full Monty, his exuberant debut about a motley pack of Sheffield steelworkers turned strippers. Fortunately, it's no Showboys. Featuring the most lovably lumpy, hopelessly knobby bodies this side of Nantasket, this saucy comedy isn't so much about baring men's skin as it is about baring men's souls.

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The director bares (almost) all

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Cattaneo pumps up the film's comic muscle by flexing the versatile talents of Scottish actor Robert Carlyle (the riveting psychotic Begbie in Trainspotting). Here Carlyle infuses his coiled charisma into Gaz, a laid-off steelworker with a head for dodgy schemes. Desperate to keep up a relationship with his son (William Snape), Gaz needs some quick quid for child support. Inspiration, however, is just a G-string away. Oiled up like hot-buttered ears of corn, the Chippendale dancers bump and grind into town. The women go crazy, and Gaz gets thinking: what if he and his blokes put on their own strip show? Smart enough to recognize there's not an ab or pec among them, he announces what he believes to be a lucrative oneupmanship of "your average 10-bit stripper" -- his lads will take it all off. In other words, they'll go the "full monty."

The film tingles with the excitement of those chirpily earnest "Let's put on a show" cavalcades of the '30s. In fact, with his physique, Mickey Rooney just might have landed a part here. For that matter, Andy Rooney as well. Cattaneo has lined up a glorious spectrum of male bods so decidedly un-Chippendale, it's hard to buy that these guys fully believe women will pay to see them in the buff. In addition to the scraggy Gaz, there's Dave (Mark Addy), a sensitive lug whose gut is causing him sexual problems; Gerald (Tom Wilkinson), their 50ish pink-slipped supervisor; Lomper (Steve Huison), an unassuming depressive; Horse (Paul Barber), who, uh, isn't hung like one; and Guy (Hugo Speer), who is, to judge by the gape-mouthed expressions whenever he drops his drawers.

Naturally, the film denudes the metaphor of nakedness, revealing the contradictory feelings of fear and freedom that rise up beneath the skin. It also toys with the Swiftian conceit that the human anatomy is by design absurd, and thereby infinitely humorous. When the men first shed their clothes, some shyly covering their nipples, they're a fantastic mix of black and white, briefs and boxers, love handles and bow legs. "No looking and no laughing," warns Dave. But it's near impossible to do anything else.

Indeed, the film nicks the male ego with a post-feminist edge. Of course, imagine the same plot as an ode to cellulite, stretch marks, and tired breasts and the National Organization for Women would understandably be painting picket signs. Although Cattaneo ribs his gender by exposing their follies, their insecurities, and the aforementioned potbellies, he never stoops to a meanspirited jab. At one point, Dave chides his pals for dismissing a centerfold as too chesty. "You better pray that women are more understanding about us," he says. "Anti-wrinkle cream there is; anti-fat-bastard cream there is not."

Cattaneo and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy evince an incredible instinct for touching detail. With the steelworkers facing a future as foggy as the Sheffield skyline, the script can't always resist a good hard yank at the affections. But mostly the film cuts its pathos with humor, whether it's portraying the men gyrating to Donna Summer in a shuffling welfare line or critiquing Jennifer Beals's welding abilities in Flashdance.

By the time Tom Jones belts out "You Can Leave Your Hat On" in a finale as optimistic and thrilling as any Busby Berkeley production, there's something undeniably authentic, infectiously sweet, and, yes, even inexplicably sexy about these guys. The knock-knees, flabby girths, and wattly chins are suddenly cause for celebration. Yet in a summer that's already unfurled an unusual number of penises on screen, the film bares more of a three-quarters monty. Some things are still best left to the imagination.

"Do it just once and do it right," says one of the men before the curtain rises. Funny, liberating, and revealing in every sense of the word, The Full Monty has taken its own advice, proving once again that when it comes to little comedies, size doesn't matter.