Sexy Beast (2001)

I think this movie has become my number one favorite go to when I need an audiovisual charge of inspiration.A breezy running time of eighty-nine minutes directed by the under appreciated Jonathan Glazer.Excellent performances by all of the actors, awesome dialogue, great music, slick imagery with psychological twists.Lots of emotions and beautiful scenery with artful visual effects.I just love, love, love this movie!

cool film ray has never been so broken in a film as in this one & Ben has never been such a bad ass. and with a lady cast that has no better i wish i could swear but they will not let me . the dream stuff is right out of my darkest nightmares bloody wolf hell monster . and the soundtrack is great and there is just real looking great people ..i hate that i have to keep writing i have said what i have to say but know please pontificate on and on must have ten lines of me going off on one love to mum and family friends and film lovers all round the world ray's SCUM is fun too please see by all means no still not not happy his daughter is a great actor to

This type of Brit Noir was just coming into vogue when "Sexy Beast" came out; though I find it sort of a cross between "The Hit" and one of those dumb things by Madonna's ex husband. A clever touch here and there, but this is a woefully overrated film. I guess if you can understand how Spanish Airport security would be intimidated by an absolutely ridiculous claim of sexual molestation from an obvious lunatic, well, this is your movie. Not much else here is more credible than that, from the heist of the super villain of the impenetrable fortress which obviously lacks the most basic alarm system. Super ruthless, powerful bad guy shows up at your door in the middle of the night? Sure, let him in, he probably won't kill you. Kingsley's celebrated performance is fine but he's been better elsewhere. No fault can really be found with any of the cast. Often Noir is concerned with the desperate lives of the hopeless people who turn to crime. This is sort of an interesting wrinkle on that, though we are never really told just what Gal's hapless buddy did, and how such a person could have been much of a criminal in the first place.

Much is talked about Ben Kingsley's casting as thuggish gangster Don Logan that people forget the other actors with roots in crime or gangster films.James Fox played ruthless Chas in Performance, Ian McShane appeared in Villain and Dirty Money and Ray Winstone has been playing villains of some sort since he was teenager such as films like Scum.Winstone plays Gal a retired safe-cracker living out in Spain with his wife and other ex-con friends. However it seems he is being lured out of retirement by Logan which causes fear amongst the group and soon Logan turns up in Spain to personally request that Gal comes to London and he is not a person you say no to. There begins a cat and mouse game and you see that Logan is unhinged switching from being friendly to explosive with sudden surges of violence.Winstone actually plays the nicest guy in the film, he just wants a quiet life with his wife and his pot of stolen loot. Kingsley, that nice Gandhi bloke strips him psychologically with threats, actual and implied, his wife's past as a porn star.The film is strong on language, it does suffer a bit too much with it at times as every other word is peppered with it. There is dark humour although the film does not take the path of comedy cockney villains that some British gangster films like to do. It relies on performances, Winstone underplays enough to let Kingsley shine in his supporting role, a part which took many by surprise because he does not play those roles.