Ian McShane doesn’t doubt people will have a visceral reaction to his new film, “44 Inch Chest.”
Ian McShane, left, and the cast of '44 Inch Chest'
The movie features the kind of language that might make Howard Stern blush, plus what you’ve come to expect when vengeance seeking gangsters kidnap some poor slob.
But McShane, the star of HBO’s “Deadwood” series, swears the film has a softer side.
“It’s male oriented yet deeply female” in nature, says McShane in the same rumbling baritone that made him a star in HBO‘s “Deadwood.”
The actor spoke with Movies in Toto about “Chest,” now playing in Washington, D.C. and select cities (and expanding to more Feb. 5).
The film casts McShane as Meredith, one of four British thugs who rally to the aide of their friend (Ray Winstone) when they learn his wife is cheating on him. The gang snatches the wife's lover and gives him over to Winstone’s character for him to torment, or abuse … or even kill should he wish.
“Chest” offers a spectrum of male behavior, from Tom Wilkinson playing a milquetoast mamma's boy to John Hurt as a spittle-flecked codger with a nasty word to say about everyone.
“All of the characters reveal themselves,” he says through the course of the dialogue-rich film.
The script, by the team behind 2000‘s “Sexy Beast,” has been floating around for years without getting the proverbial green light. McShane says he and Winstone were attached right from the start.
“We always said we wouldn’t do it without it each other,” McShane says of Winstone, currently starring alongside Mel Gibson in “Edge of Darkness.”
Part II: McShane offers a glimpse of the forthcoming “Chest” DVD and talks about working again with “Deadwood” creator David Milch.
Christian Toto is a veteran journalist and film critic whose work appears in The Denver Post, The Washington Times and PajamasMedia.com. He blogs on film at What Would Toto Watch?
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