•
Rating:
Come to Sheffield, folks! The new industrial capital of England! Sheffield, a city that offers numerous job opportunities thanks to its bustling factories, but also plenty of fun with its exclusive nightclubs, cutting-edge tourist areas, and excellent football teams to dedicate your leisure time to! Sheffield, a city constantly evolving! Yes, maybe!
Within a few years, things change for the worse, and a sword of Damocles hangs over the heads of three friends. Gaz, a separated former worker, partially responsible for his child as he risks losing custody due to financial issues, spent some time behind bars, and is currently broke. Dave, a former worker, married, childless, with problems best confided to a urologist. Gerald, a former section head, married, childless, a skilled dancer (the British Nureyev), with a childhood passion for the seven dwarfs. What to do if the factory is closed and left us unemployed? Fill in job applications that will never be accepted? Play cards at the club? No. None of that. They need to find a job or a remedy, and fast.
The stroke of genius comes quickly as they pass by a venue showing off some muscular strippers to a couple of hundred women bored with the gray monotony of suburban life. Too bad that among the fiery audience is Dave's kind wife, which just complicates matters. A daring thought, a couple of calculations in pounds, and a penetrating worry begin to drill into Gaz's mind. Strippers...why not, a few dance steps and the teacher is there, a bit of coordination in movement, and there's Arsenal's offside tactic, a bit of imagination and that isn't lacking, a few pounds for the ticket, and a temporary but good arrangement is found. A countercurrent note though: those plastic dolls stay in their underwear, but we will present the "full service"!
Initially hesitant, the trio starts to believe because the hunger, uncertainty, and loneliness begin to bite painfully. Lomper, a trumpeter, aspiring yet overly confused suicide who lives with his mom, joins the group. First rehearsals take place in the abandoned factory where the latter was a guard. Amid a few trays of Chinese food heated with the car engine and the tempting notes of Hot Chocolate, they've got a disaster to resolve quickly with a few more experienced elements: Horse, an elderly black man with a fake hip and blues in his blood, and Guy, owner of a "third leg" to shock and the only handsome one in the wrecked company.
The comedic sequences are hilarious, reaching their peak in the scene where they line up once again at the job center. The striptease is shelved, there's nothing to be done. A rogue radio broadcasting "Hot Stuff" will be enough to change their mind. The striptease will happen, and how, in front of 400 "ravenous" women and especially with full service to the notes of Joe Cocker's famous song revisited by Tom Jones.
Debut film by Peter Cattaneo, a TV film director and a successful prediction by producer Uberto Pasolini. Excellent performances by Robert Carlyle post-Trainspotting, Mark Addy, and Tom Wilkinson. The soundtrack curated by Anne Dudley is beautiful and perfectly fitting. A globally very entertaining film that also leaves room for relatively dramatic situations elegantly described with uncommon tact and, in some events, even with poetry. The "bitter" notes or rather those to reflect on, well hidden from the core of the subject, range from melancholy to homosexuality, from death to depression, from the desire for redemption to senile monotony. The film wants to make us understand how it is possible to derive the bright side of negative events, the positive side that attempts to push the demotivated to go beyond. In this film, you laugh a lot but also understand that life goes on, it goes on, and stopping is truly a grave mistake, an added obstacle one places in their path.
In conclusion, Ken Loach will take inspiration for "Paul, Mick, and the others". 1 Oscar out of 4 nominations. The other 3 sunk with the cursed "Titanic".
Loading comments slowly
