The Full Monty

For a film that isn't too old, I was very surprised that I've never heard about The Full Monty, and as I read the summary of the movie, I wasn't too impressed. Watching a film about male strippers is not at the top of my movie viewing list. However, being that this film was a comedy, I tried to keep an open mind. As it turns out, The Full Monty turned out to be very good film and was much more than my initial expectations.

While watching the film, I did not have the most positive outlook on the movie. Since my initial thoughts were negative, it took some thinking after the film was over to fully appreciate the underlying message in The Full Monty. At first, I thought about how the main characters were struggling with no work and and relationship issues. One of the supporting roles even attempted suicide! Obviously these men felt they were at "rock-bottom" and things couldn't get any worse.

I found it very amusing that the actors felt the best option to pick themselves up was stripping. But once a viewer accepts that the film really isn't about stripping, they can see that The Full Monty addresses a lot of social issues. The way these issues were presented was brilliant being that the film was a comedy and viewers must really focus on the underlying plot to fully understand them. The most obvious issue in The Full Monty would be custody rights. After all, the whole plot and idea of stripping to earn money is what the film is based on. But there were also many other issues addressed more lightly in this film. For example, one of the main characters was very self-conscious about his weight and two supporting actors turned out to be gay. The Full Monty did a great job presenting these issues in a comical way.

If the plot and underlying social issues weren't enough to keep the viewers entertained, The Full Monty had another useful technique (and no, it wasn't the stripping). The selection of music and songs used in this film was amazing. A majority of the songs used in the film were hits when they were released by their respective artists. "You Sexy Thing," "Land of a Thousand Dances," "Flashdance (What a Feeling)," and "We are Family" are just a few of the songs used in this film. The popularity of these songs has certainly not decreased since their releases.

The phrase "don't judge a book by its cover" does actually have some truth and I feel that it should also be applied to films. Initially, I was not interested in this film and definitely did not want to spend my time watching it. However, there was much more to this film than I had anticipated. If I ever run into similar problems that these characters experienced, I will immediately think of The Full Monty. And I can't say what will happen after that, but perhaps my luck will turn around!