As you may have gathered from previous pieces, Sexy Beast is one of my very favourite films. And now here’s 44 Inch Chest, with a lot of the same names involved. Ray Winstone once again provides a sterling performance as the lead, and the script is by Louis Mellis and David Scinto. Pretty much everything you’d hope for if you’re hoping lightning to strike twice, ignoring the fact that it rarely does, though director Malcolm Venville has a fair go at attracting it.

Winstone stars as Colin Diamond, a man whose life has fallen apart since his wife left him. See, she was seeing this other bloke. Sorry, a guy and not a bloke. Distinctions like these are central to a script that is as much an examination of masculinity as it is a story. In fact, you could say — but only a ponce would say it to Colin Diamond’s grizzled and grizzling face — that some fucker’s made off with the story and left the audience with just a situation. What sort of bastard would do a thing like that?

Fortunately, the situation that’s left is an interesting one. Colin’s got his mates together and they’ve gone and kidnapped the wanker what went and shagged Mrs Diamond (Joanne Whalley). Now, the French waiter is in this wardrobe, all locked up like, waiting for Colin to give the nod so’s the boys can get stuck into the creep. Froggie went a wooing, and he’s going to pay for it — with his life.

It all holds together well for the first hour, maybe more. With talent like Ian McShane, John Hurt, Tom Wilkinson and Stephen Dillane involved, and an absorbing, obscene and often hilarious script, it’s a fine ride the film takes you on. But then the brakes come on when Joanne Whalley turns up, and the film doesn’t recover.

Possibly this is down to the different geezers all being different types of bloke, where Joanne is emblematic of all women. Which is hard for any bird to pull off, if you ask me. The lads themselves…you’ve got Ray as a married man who doesn’t know what to do without his wife, and uses the vocabulary of pop psychology at times even when he’s smacking her round the house. Then there’s a guy approaching middle age who’s still living with his mum. A ladies’ man who knows the patter and how to light a girl’s cigarette. A vile Old Testament misogynist. And an actual la-di-da homosexual.

The interaction between the men is deftly written and performed, and tragically reminiscent of many all male conversations I’ve been in. So why do the wheels fall off when Liz Diamond comes onto the scene? It’s like the writers didn’t know where to go next, beyond some implication that women can play men and win. Which is fair enough as far as it goes, but doesn’t convince in a scenario when Ray and the lads were initially planning to skin both Frenchie and Liz alive.

Credibility goes out the window then, and instead we get a bunch of dream sequences. They’re fun, but also very self indulgent. I was reminded of the fantasy pieces embellishing Led Zeppelin’s live concert movie The Song Remains The Same to no good effect — another fine example of alpha males strutting around with more resources than sense at their disposal.

Still, the things that are good about 44 Inch Chest are very good indeed. The first hour is a wonderfully written, darkly perceptive exploration of what men are, or can be, like. It’s just a pity that there’s not more story to make it go further. Sexy Beast was all about the subtext, but here everything is on the surface, like a bulldog tattoo you wake up with after an ill-advised night out, that you never go back to get coloured in.