Sexy Beast (2000)

Director: Jonathan Glazer
Starring: Ray Winstone, Ben Kingsley, Ian McShane |
Duration: 89'

Glazer made his breakthrough from directing amazing video clips for bands such as Radiohead, Massive Attack, Blur, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds to directing feature films with one of the most impressive and unexpected debuts in the British cinema.

Before the masterful «Under the Skin» and the mystic «Birth», Glazer attempted a sassy, and from many accounts sudden, combination of black comedy and gangster adventure, with plenty of wedges of surrealism, which made it to the Oscars due to Ben Kingsley’s demonic performance. 

In «Sexy Beast», Gal (Ray Winstone) has put illegality in the past and together with Deedee, his stunning girlfriend, he is enjoying the hot Mediterranean sun at an isolated villa in the suburbs of Spain. Everything seems to roll in a summer retention rhythm until the couple receives a visit from Don (Ben Kingsley), a half-insane chief-mafia persona who proposes to Gal a trip to England for a final big «trick». Despite being totally negative towards such prospect, Gal finally takes an offer from Don he cannot refuse.

Due to a masterful carving of characters, frantic dialogues, inventive direction and Kingsley in one of the most memorable villain roles in cinema, the result is – literally and metaphorically – a bone thrashing film.

Kostis Theodosopoulos