"Actor: Steve Huison"

• The Full Monty | DVD | (17/04/2019) from £4.99   |  Saving you £1.00 (20.04%)   |  RRP £5.99

  Overtaking Jurassic Park as the UK's biggest box office attraction of 1998, and winning one of its four Academy Award nominations, The Full Monty was the surprise world-wide smash of the year, it's unexpected success reflecting the underdog inspiring message of the film itself. Leading a strong cast, it was Robert Carlyle's appearance here which propelled him to sex-symbol superstardom and brought him high-profile Hollywood roles in Angela's Ashes, The World is Not Enough and The Beach among others. The story revolves around the attempts of five unemployed grafters from the recession-hit industrial North to reclaim some of their dignity, which they attempt to do by the unlikely expedient of becoming male strippers. The film follows their struggle to become The Chippendales for real women, from their shambolic beginnings to their euphoric debut appearance in front of 300 hungry lasses! Saucy and spicy with a rocking soundtrack, The Full Monty tells of the triumph of spirit over adversity, reminding us that everyone can be special, no matter what their shape ... or size. This is British independent film making at its very best, exhibiting the heart-warming truthfulness captured by many UK directors, yet eschewing their often gloomy negativity for an altogether more optimistic outlook: it's a modern fairy tale in which all five Cinderellas get to go to the ball. --Paul Eisinger

• The Full Monty | DVD | (27/02/2006) from £7.05   |  Saving you £8.94 (126.81%)   |  RRP £15.99

  Six men. With nothing to lose. Who dare to go....the full monty! Dole queue Job Club domestic discord - the world is falling apart for six unemployed Sheffield steelworkers. But one of them has had enough. Determined to beat the system Gaz (Carlyle) hatches a plan that will make him and his friends serious rich - and quickly! He convinces them that a strip routine will bring in the punters especially when that act reveals the ultimate - the Full Monty! As our local heroes

• The Navigators | DVD | (22/04/2002) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £19.99

  Ken Loach does for the railways in The Navigators what he did for the construction industry in Riff-Raff (1990). As ever, his sympathies lie firmly with the ordinary working blokes, not above of bit of banter and skiving, but essentially trying to do a decent job and stay loyal to their mates in the face of managerial double-talk and corporate devotion to the bottom line. It's 1995, and the Tories have just carried out their disastrous, pea-brained scheme to break up the railways. We follow the fortunes of a gang of track workers in South Yorkshire as they find themselves confronted with all the fallout of privatisation--redundancies, cost-cutting, corner-cutting and the wholesale junking of any concern with safety or quality of work. Accidental deaths, one hapless time-server explains, "have got to be kept to an acceptable level". Two scenes encapsulate the tragic-comic tone of the film. At one point the disbelieving workers are ordered by managers to smash up a load of new equipment; it's surplus to requirements, but can't possibly be sold to "the competition", their former British Rail workmates at the depot down the line. Later, called to a derailment, the track workers pass a whole series of hard-hat wearing managers, each paying no attention to what needs doing but muttering fiercely into a mobile phone trying to pass the buck for the accident to another company. Loach cast the film using local actors and comics, and there's a strong sense of authenticity in the flat accents and dry Yorkshire humour. But ultimately this is a lament for the destruction, not only of what was once a great rail network, but of the pride and camaraderie of those who worked on it. The film's ending is fittingly bleak. --Philip Kemp