✭ ✭ ✭ ✭ Read critic reviews
United Kingdom, United States · 1997
Rated R · 1h 31m
Director Peter Cattaneo
Starring Robert Carlyle, Mark Addy, William Snape, Steve Huison
Genre Comedy
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Sheffield, England. Gaz, a jobless steelworker in need of quick cash persuades his mates to bare it all in a one-night-only strip show.
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
Peter Cattaneo's comedy has brash and boisterous scenes, but its message about the humiliations of unemployment is serious and insightful, and applies far beyond the English setting of this story.
Washington Post by Desson Thomson
Beaufoy and Cattaneo handle this potentially racy material with an engaging balance of good taste and outright slapstick.
ReelViews by James Berardinelli
Originality may be at a premium here, but The Full Monty offers plenty of opportunities for laughter and genial smiles.
A winning mix of humor and poignant character examination, and a satisfying film.
Los Angeles Times by Kevin Thomas
If you don't go expecting the depth and subtlety of a Mike Leigh working-class film, The Full Monty can be heart-warming fun with more serious undertones than you might have expected. [13 August 1997, Calendar, p.F-5]
Chicago Reader by Lisa Alspector
This wonderful 1997 comedy--about an unlikely group of men who are determined to strip to music rather than get day jobs--is genuinely effective at inverting gender stereotypes and other assumptions, and it's not the slightest bit heavy-handed.
Takes a premise that seems ripe for broad, vulgar joking and turns it into a sly, even subtle, comedy.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Rick Groen
A laugh and a half, a genial crowd-pleaser.
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
The director, Peter Cattaneo, takes material that could would be at home in a sex comedy, and gives it gravity because of the desperation of the characters; we glimpse the home life of these men, who have literally been put on the shelf, and we see the wound to their pride.
Such pure, naked joy is utterly contagious.
The last battle between crime and the law in every major city in the world.
When he talks, women listen.
This was an unlikely hit that has earned its status as a cult classic. The movie manages to balance witty, dry humor and physical comedy. Even more, it uses that humor to tackle issues of masculinity, economic insecurity, depression, and divorce.