Sexy Beast

Plot:  Brutal gangster Don Logan recruits "retired" safecracker Gal for one last job, but it goes badly for both of them.

Director:

Jonathan Glazer

Writers:

Louis Mellis, David Scinto, 1 more credit »

Stars:

Ray Winstone, Ben Kingsley, Ian McShane

This may go down in movie history as one of the most misleading titles in the history of cinema.  It's also one of the more riveting movies I have ever had the pleasure of stumbling across. 

It's as if the director came to Ben Kingsly and said, "Look, I wrote a movie about a truly despicable individual.  How big of a piece of shit can you be?"  And Kingsly said "Pretty big."  And the director said, "I need you to be gigantic, like the size of Mount Everest."  And Kingsly said, "Done."

I often hear it said about actors putting on a "tour de force" but there has never been a greater example of doing this than Kingsly in this movie.  He plays the most absurdly cruel person you can imagine; he makes Edward Norton's character in American History X seem "cuddly."

I don't know who this movie is for really.  I would best describe it as Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels but without the comedy.  It's a gritty, mean spirited story about a retired thief who wants to stay retired, but his former employer won't let him.  They need him on a job, and will pretty much do everything in their power to get him to sign on to the job.  It starts kinda slow so you need to give it some time to build up, and they have heavy European accents so turn up the volume and pay attention.  

This is a movie I enjoyed tremendously, but it's hard to recommend for most people.  I suppose anyone who likes crime dramas can give this a look, or anyone who wonders what the world's worst house guest would be like.

4/5 STARS