Sexy Beast

Ben Kingsley's portrayal of gangster Don Logan is destined to go down as one of the most memorable mobsters in filmdom; up there with the best from Robinson, Bogart, Cagney, Raft, deNiro, Pacino et al. Kingsley's all that good and more. And the other actors, in their portrayals of fellow gangsters and their lovers, are also excellent. The story is simple. Gal (Ray Winstone) is a retired English gangster living a life of leisure at his Spanish villa. Then one day his idyll is shattered by a visit from Don Logan, an old protégé, and man to be feared. Logan's intent is to lure Gal out of retirement for 'one last job'. Gal wants nothing to do with it, and the first half of the movie is a battle of wits between the two men. The second half of the film deals with the heist and its aftermath. The crime is downplayed in the movie which is primarily a psychological exploration of these gangsters; their personal demons, and the relationships amongst themselves. They are indeed scary people, no sympathetic characters here.

This is one of the best movies of 2000, and is highly recommended. I don't understand how IMDb reviewers can rate this movie so low. In my book it definitely rates an "A".

18 years ago I think I thought of it as another flashy, profane, British gangster movie with an astonishing performance by Ben Kingsley. Now I think it's one of the best flashy, profane, creative and well written, British or not, heist movies made. With an astonishing performance by Ben Kingsley. Everybody's good. Behind and in front of the camera What really surprised me was how good it is now, how well made it is that it could have been released this week and there'd be nothing to complain about.

Sexy Beast is a funny and highly enjoyable crime movie punctuated by some blood curdling violence. The film was directed by Jonathen Glazer, who was responsible for most of the recent amazing Guinness beer adverts.

Ray Winstone is Gal, a retired criminal enjoying retirement in Spain with friends and the woman he loves. But this is shattered by the arrival of a menacing figure from his past in the shape of pyschotic Don Logan (played with evil intensity by Ben Kingsley). Don wants Gal for one last spectacular job and will do just about anything to get him, including threatening Gal's beloved wife.

The story is told at a fast pace, with several surreal interludes but never loses momentum. Ray Winstone puts in another loveable badboy performance that he does so well, but the film is dominated by Kingsley who steals every scene he is in and creates one of the most menacing screen villains in recent memory. The brilliance of the film is that it manages to combine so many disparate elements (thriller, comedy, and a touching love story to say the least) into a cohesive and highly entertaining whole. A real pleasure to watch and a striking, brilliant debut.

Gal is a safecracker now living in retirement in the Costa del Crime in Spain. Safe from the law and living off the money he managed to put to one side when working. When London gangster Don Logan calls a friend to offer Gal a job, Gal intends to refuse it but is faced with telling him face to face when Logan arrives from London offering Gal the job in two days time. As the unpredictably brutal Logan pressures Gal more and more he is faced with the possibility of having to return to England for a job.

I watched this several years after it came out in the cinema so I was sheltered from much of the hype. I'm not a huge fan of all these new British gangster movies that are about of late as many seem to be in awe of `Lock, Stock' and just are happy to copy rather than innovate. Sexy Beast really gripped me for the most part because it doesn't try to copy like so many others. Instead it is very stagey rather than slick and energetic. The plot weakness is that it has nowhere to really go. The `job' itself is pretty pointless and the key moment that is meant to have us on the edge of our seats doesn't really work.

However what does work is the majority of the film where Gal and Logan standoff to each other. This is very dialogue driven but really works mostly because of Kingsley who rightly got an Oscar nod for this. He drives the film with his brutal and unpredictable character. Winstone is good but is almost a support character when viewed beside Kingsley. The support cast are OK with Fox and McShane being interesting but underused castings.

The fantasy scenes are imaginative and the film is very stylishly done without copying off anyone else. It falls a little flat towards the end and the `job' is not as exciting as one would have hoped – basically once Logan `convinces' Gal to take the job the pressure cooker excitement is gone never to be replaced. Up to that point this is quite a wonderful little find.

This is a spectacular piece of British cinema only made better by the lack of Hugh Grant and Richard Curtis.

Ben Kingsley portrayal of a nasty bastard is amazing his delivery is to the point and scary, His character has a slight smile and staring eyes that drill into you and talking himself into a frenzy makes him even more horrible to cope with.

What is shown in this film is very quick editing combined with sound continuity so the cuts are invisible and unintrusive, strong use of colour, using a low key to make even the sun of Spain seem dark and a style unseen before, the lack of cliché ridden cockney slang makes this film even more credible.

When the film first starts we get a dream like underwater shot which you are not expecting, a metaphor for 'living the dream' possibly, but throughout the film the increasing amount of surrealism adds another layer to this almost perfect British gangster film.