Full Monty, The

Variety Derek Elley

Bright and sassy, The Full Monty is a treat.

Salon.com Laura Miller

So seamlessly buoyant and enjoyable that it's easy to miss how carefully and sensitively it's made.

San Francisco Examiner G. Allen Johnson

There isn't a whole lot of fancy subplotting, just a potpourri of funny and engaging characters.

Chicago Tribune Mark Caro

Takes a premise that seems ripe for broad, vulgar joking and turns it into a sly, even subtle, comedy.

USA Today Susan Wloszczyna

Such pure, naked joy is utterly contagious.

Chicago Reader 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.

Los Angeles Times 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]

Time Richard Schickel

To make an unembarrassing movie about embarrassment is definitely an eye-opening achievement.

The New York Times Alan Riding

Inevitably, the film has echoes of "Brassed Off," another recent British export. The Full Monty is less sentimental and arguably funnier.

Washington Post Rita Kempley

Along with witty, appropriately rough-hewn repartee and genuine poignancy, writer Simon Beaufoy manages to sustain suspense to the last gyration.

Film.com John Hartl

Rowdy, funny, surprisingly sweet.

Film.com Alice Smith

A very funny film that never sacrifices the lives of its characters to the needs of its story.

Mr. Showbiz Cody Clark

A bully good romp, and it thumbs its nose at the bloated blockbusters towering over it at the multiplexes by ending the moment it arrives at its raucous, richly deserved climax.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

A winning mix of humor and poignant character examination, and a satisfying film.

Newsweek Andrea C. Basora

The portraits are spare but right on target. And the film keeps you laughing even as you feel the pain of the characters.

San Francisco Chronicle Ruthe Stein

Screenwriter Simon Beaufoy has created full characters as vulnerable in their personal lives as in their work.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

The comic moments in this ingratiating bit of malarkey from director Peter Cattaneo and screenwriter Simon Beaufoy (both TV trained, both making their feature debuts) are winning.

Baltimore Sun Michael Ollove

Ceaselessly amiable, moving whimsically toward an ending that, while predictable, is a rousing, unfettered joy.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

Simple, joyful and downright innocent movie.

Chicago Sun-Times 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.

Christian Science Monitor 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.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Originality may be at a premium here, but The Full Monty offers plenty of opportunities for laughter and genial smiles.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

A laugh and a half, a genial crowd-pleaser.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

Beaufoy and Cattaneo handle this potentially racy material with an engaging balance of good taste and outright slapstick.

Slate David Edelstein

The laughs are fuller when they're rooted in authentic desperation, and the premise is yeasty enough to keep the film from sinking into facile hopelessness.

LA Weekly Ella Taylor

Genuinely touching.

Film.com Tom Keogh

Its own, tough-minded antidote to the grab-the-brass-ring whimsy of its premise.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

A nearly perfect piffle in an age when hardly any movie seems to know how to play the light notes well.

Austin Chronicle Russell Smith

Feel-good comedy with none of the pejorative hints of innocuous blandness that term so often implies.

TNT RoughCut Laurence Lerman

While slight and fairly unassuming considering its subject, the cast is uniformly fine.

TV Guide Ken Fox

An enjoyable, ultimately inconsequential crowd-pleaser.