Uplifting 'Full Monty' goes all the way

In the near-phenomenal British import "The Full Monty," six guys are huddled around a security-circuit TV in a dilapidated factory building. They are watching a shoplifted copy of "Flashdance"; Jennifer Beals, in full welder's getup, is basking in a shower of white sparks.

"I hope she dances better than she welds," suddenly notes one in slight disgust. "Look, what is this?" The others nod in full agreement. They know what they're talking about.

REVIEW
	The Full Monty At Michigan and Showcase

High concept, Brit style: unemployed steel factory workers start a male strip revue! What could have been an unsightly piece of self-conscious smarm (and would have been, if the script found its way across the Atlantic), instead reveals itself to be a bright, Richard Lester-esque fable; it's as life-affirming a story as can be told about guys in the welfare line discovering the pleasures of really dirty dancing.

Each character sharply silhouetted by a single chief trait, the sextet comprise a cartoonish team almost ready for Saturday-morning TV: the leader, the fat guy, the depressed guy, the old guy, the shifty guy and the lone more or less legitimate stud. The leader is played by Robert Carlysle, psychopathic Begbie of "Trainspotting." Carlysle, a spookily versatile thespian, turns in a credible performance under incredible circumstances; he's like a fugitive from the set of Mike Leigh's improv-fest "Life Is Sweet," wandering into a real plot for a change.

The film, meanwhile, shamelessly piles on every let's-put-on-a-show-to-save-the-old-orphanage trick, every motivational McGuffin in the book. One of the guys needs the money to keep the custody of his son. Another never mustered the gall to tell his wife he's unemployed, and lives by maxing out card after card. Yet another is battling suicidal depression.

Funny thing is, every mossy cliche gets completely redefined by the sheer absurdity of what kind of a show is being put on. Since our heroes more or less realize that there is not a Mr. Universe in their ranks, they decide to compensate by, yes, going full monty; that is, by providing the crowd with the ticket's worth of schlong.

The secret to how a plot point like this is still going to sell out theaters in Peoria, Ill., lies in a bizarrely innocent approach the authors have to the subject. The dancers are so intimidated by the looming prospect of public disrobing that they take all the potential discomfort from the audience and upon themselves. Try frowning if the story makes its own characters queasier than you'll ever be.

And there's not much to frown about either, as the film nearly devoid of female characters actually turns feminist around the edges: the men cope with the fact that they are being judged solely on the basis of their appearance, only to realize that they don't have to be - ha!

"The Full Monty" finds the elusive right tone and keeps it: a mix of good-natured pity toward its hapless protagonists and genuine reverence before their collective drive - regardless of the result.

And here's the main joke: the result is not half bad. In the climactic Big Show, the dancers make up in enthusiasm for what they lack in finesse - and the crowd, on screen and off, goes wild. When those knickers do fly off, it's at once a triumph of the will, an affirmation of the all-in-fun philosophy - and a mass mooning of the world that makes this idiocy possible. In the end, the word that comes to mind to describe "The Full Monty" is, oddly enough, "uplifting," and I now leave you to pun on this epithet at will.

"Full Monty" star Robert Carlysle is a macho, macho man.

"You want us to do what?" William Snape, Mark Addy, Robert Carlysle, Steve Huison and Tom Wilkinson are unemployed steel workers aghast at the possibility of going "The Full Monty."

09-15-97