Film: Sexy Beast
Director: Jonathan Glazer
Country: UK
Released: September 2000
Runtime: 88 minutes
Genre: Gangster Movie
Studio: FilmFour
Influenced: Lynne Ramsay, Yorgos Lanthimos, Andrea Arnold, David Michôd, Denis Villeneuve
Sexy Beast is a love story that turns into a horror story. Jonathan Glazer, who built a reputation for his work in music videos and TV commercials, turned to feature films with his debut Sexy Beast, a movie that somehow manages to pay homage to the British gangster genre while subverting it at the same time. The genre had experienced a revival in the late 90s with Guy Ritchie's Lock, Stock & Two Smoking Barrels, launching the careers of hardmen like Vinnie Jones and Jason Statham, and attracting the interest of Hollywood, including Brad Pitt who appeared in Ritchie's follow-up film, Snatch (2000). Sexy Beast was produced on a relatively low budget but still attracted some considerable British acting talent, including the legendary Ben Kingsley, Ray Winstone, Amanda Redman, Ian McShane, James Fox and Cavan Kendall (in his final role before his untimely death). Kingsley plays Don Logan, a ruthless psychopath who arrives like a Tomahawk missile to wreck the Spanish retirement idyll of Ray Winstone's Gary Dove.
After a phenomenal opening scene in which we see Gary, or Gal, expressing his deep joy at being able to bask in the Spanish sun, we see the first hint of trouble in paradise when a boulder rolls down off the mountain, narrowly missing Gal’s head and landing in his swimming pool. Ray is vulnerable and engaging in the lead role, bringing his normal charisma, while also being emblematic of the typical Brit abroad in Spain who likes to complain about back home being a "shithole". Gal Dove is a retired London gangster who is seeking to escape his past and settle into a quiet life in Spain with his wife DeeDee (Amanda Redman) and his mate Aitch (Cavan Kendall). The film was inspired by real-life events involving the infamous London gangster Gary Stretch. Gal and Aitch are like a couple of big kids with trophy wives, going off on shooting trips in the day and eating at fancy restaurants at night. This serene existence is disrupted when violent criminal Don arrives with the intention of recruiting Gal for a heist in London.
Cast against type, Ben Kingsley is nothing short of magnificent in the role of Don Logan. Kingsley brought a level of intensity and unpredictability to the character of Don that was not always scripted, and his improvisational skills add an extra layer of authenticity and menace to the character. In one memorable scene, when Gal says, "I’m just gonna have to turn this opportunity down", Don replies, "No, you’re gonna have to turn this opportunity yes". Another darkly comic moment is when he accuses Gal of making "insinuendos", while every time I watch the scene where he talks about the air steward touching his front bottom, I nearly die of laughter. Gal is relentlessly pursued and pressured by Don to join the heist, and this psychological battle between the two characters forms the core of the narrative. In the finale, which takes place in London and features crime boss Teddy Bass (Ian McShane) and posh city banker Harry (James Fox), we see Gal carry out the elaborate heist with a team of crooks.
Sexy Beast received critical acclaim and garnered several awards and nominations. Kingsley received widespread praise for his performance as Don, earning a nomination for the Oscar for Best Supporting Actor, while the film won the BAFTA Award for Best British Film. It also received widespread recognition at the European Film Awards, the British Independent Film Awards and others, launching the career of groundbreaking director Jonathan Glazer. Sexy Beast is a lean film that defies easy categorisation, almost reaching the level of a cinematic poem. Certain scenes, like the surreal nightmare sequence that features the recurring beast character on horseback, hint at how Glazer’s cinematic style would develop in his later films, notably Under The Skin (2013). Glazer's movies have demonstrated that British cinema has a much wider reach than costume dramas and comedies, and can also explore edgy and experimental territory.
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