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Sexy Beast

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Sexy Beast
original film poster
Directed byJonathan Glazer
Written byLouis Mellis
David Scinto
Produced byJeremy Thomas
StarringRay Winstone
Ben Kingsley
Amanda Redman
Ian McShane
CinematographyIvan Bird
Edited byJohn Scott
Sam Sneade
Music byRoque Baños
Production
company
Distributed byFilmFour (UK)
Fox Searchlight Pictures
Release dates
  • September 13, 2000 (2000-09-13) (TIFF)
  • January 12, 2001 (2001-01-12) (UK)
  • June 13, 2001 (2001-06-13) (US)
Running time
89 minutes
CountriesTemplate:Film UK
Template:Film Spain
LanguageEnglish
Budget£3 million
Box office£31,765,934

Sexy Beast is a 2000 British-Spanish crime drama film directed by Jonathan Glazer and starring Ray Winstone, Ben Kingsley, and Ian McShane. Produced by Jeremy Thomas, it was Glazer's debut feature film, who had previously been a music video director for videos such as Rabbit in Your Headlights for British electronica group UNKLE,[1] and commercials for companies such as Guinness and Levi.

The film earned Kingsley an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor.[2] In 2004 the magazine Total Film named Sexy Beast the 15th greatest British film of all time.[3]

Plot

Ex-con and expert safe-cracker Gary "Gal" Dove (Ray Winstone) has served his time behind bars and blissfully retired to a Spanish villa with his beloved wife Deedee (Amanda Redman). He also has the company of longtime friend Aitch and his wife Jackie. Their idyll is shattered, however, by the arrival of an old criminal associate, Don Logan (Ben Kingsley), who is intent on enlisting Gal in a bank heist back in London.

Dove politely but firmly refuses Logan's many requests to join the heist, but Logan will not back down. After revealing a lingering infatuation with Jackie, he makes several unwelcome attempts at reconnecting with her. Logan eventually grows violent, hurling torrents of abuse at the group while at the same time spitefully painting himself as a victim of their infidelity. After finally storming away in a rage, Logan is kicked off his plane and returns to Dove's home with the intention of murdering him. Instead, Deedee surprises him with a shotgun. The entire group combines their efforts to kill him, first beating and shooting him, and finally crushing his skull.

Organizing the heist is Teddy Bass, a powerful crime lord, who has learned about the bank's vault from Harry, the bank's CEO whom he met at a sex orgy. To provide cover for Logan's death, Dove returns to London to perform the job. When asked by Bass about Logan's whereabouts, Dove feigns ignorance and claims Logan had called him "from Heathrow." However, Bass is visibly suspicious, and Dove's anxieties mount.

During the heist, Bass' gangsters use surface-supplied diving gear and drill into Harry's bank vault from a pool in a neighbouring bath house. The water from the pool floods the vault and shorts its security system. While helping to empty the vault's safe deposit boxes, Dove secretly pockets a pair of large ruby earrings encrusted with diamonds. After the job is successfully completed, Dove's lack of joviality further raises Bass' suspicions. Bass offers Dove a ride to the airport, but along the way, stops by Harry's home. Inside, Bass kills Harry in cold blood and immediately and pointedly questions Dove again about Logan. Dove merely responds, "I'm not into this any more." Back in the car, Logan suggests he knows, saying, "Spain, eh? I must drop in sometime. Pay my respects."

In the next scene and back in Spain, Dove is again home surrounded by his friends and by Deedee, who is seen wearing the ruby-diamond earrings that he stole, and it is revealed that Logan is buried deeply under the double-heart insignia at the bottom of their pool.

Cast

  • Ray Winstone as Gary "Gal" Dove, a retired safe-cracker who used to be a prominent criminal and minor celebrity in the London underworld, loved by everyone and a popular figure. He was involved in a heist that went wrong and spent nine years of his life in prison, taking the full rap for the job. Once out, he married DeeDee, the love of his life, and moved to Spain, wanting never to have anything to do with crime again. Although there are strong hints that he used to be a "hard man" back in his old life, he is now a very private person and never shows much aggression, until the final confrontation with Don Logan.
  • Ben Kingsley as Don Logan, a recruiter for the London underworld, who puts people together into teams to pull off various heists. A cunning, violent sociopath, he uses everything in his power — from subtle manipulation to outright violence — to convince Dove to return to London to do a final job. Kingsley, on the DVD commentary, calls Logan "The Unhappiest Man in the World" and in several interviews, has claimed that he based his performance largely on his grandmother, whom he called " A vile and extremely unpleasant woman."
  • Ian McShane as Teddy Bass, the head of a criminal empire in London. According to an interview with McShane, Bass controls a loose-knit underworld gang that commits a robbery about once every five to 10 years. He is a meticulous planner and frequently uses Logan's services to put his teams together for jobs. Like Logan, Bass does not hesitate to use violence, and shoots Harry in the head in cold blood.
  • Amanda Redman as DeeDee Dove, Gal's beloved wife, a former porn star who is also trying to put her old life behind her. Logan later tells Dove that her old films are still very popular; it is also heavily implied that it was hard-core footage. According to Kingsley's DVD commentary, Logan is nearly as afraid of DeeDee as she is of him.
  • James Fox as Harry, a bisexual banker who shows Bass the vault after having sex with him. Harry knows that Bass is after his vault, but believes that his bank is impregnable.
  • Cavan Kendall as Aitch, Dove's best friend; he and his wife Jackie are happily married, which incurs Logan's envious wrath.
  • Julianne White as Jackie, Aitch's wife, who had a brief fling with Logan three years before the film is set.
  • Álvaro Monje as Enrique, a Spanish boy who helps Gal out around the house.

Production

Producer Jeremy Thomas later remembered his experience making the film:

Sexy Beast was the beginning of a new phase for me of working with first time filmmakers. Jonathan Glazer was a television commercials director in the UK, and a wonderful talent. We were sent this script which he was attached to, and out came this wonderful film. It was very stimulating having a first time talent... The dialogue as you see in this film is exceptional. I had never read a script like it, and I thought, this has got to be made. It was very difficult to get insurance on the film actually. When the American studio bought the film, their legal department said: "You cannot make this." It has something like 300 uses of the word "cunt", and 400 "fucks", but somehow it passed the censorship and got out there.[4]

Reception

The film has received very positive reviews, currently holding an aggregate rating of 85 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 117 reviews.[5] Another aggregate review website, Metacritic, has given it a rating of 79 percent, a rating which classifies the film as receiving "Generally favorable reviews" by the website's rating standards.[6] It received high praise from writers at the San Francisco Chronicle,[7] Entertainment Weekly,[8] Slate,[9] Rolling Stone[10] and the Los Angeles Times,[11] but was panned by Stephen Hunter of Washington Post who described some of the film's moments as "Ben Kingsley spraying saliva-lubricated variants of the F-word into the atmosphere like anti-aircraft fire for 10 solid minutes."[12] It was also described as "often enjoyable" but "massively uneven" by Variety.[13]

Awards and nominations

Ben Kingsley's performance received a majority of the accolades given to Sexy Beast, winning Best Supporting Actor awards from the Broadcast Film Critics Association, Boston Society of Film Critics, Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association, Florida Film Critics Circle, San Diego Film Critics Society, Southeastern Film Critics Association and the Toronto Film Critics Association. He also was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award (losing to Ian McKellen for his performance in The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring), a Golden Globe and an Academy Award (losing both to Jim Broadbent for his performance in Iris).

In addition, the film also won Best Director and Best Screenplay from the British Independent Film Awards and Special Recognition ("For excellence in filmmaking") from the National Board of Review.

References

  1. ^ Wittmershaus, Eric. Review of Sexy Beast, Flak Magazine, July 11, 2001. Accessed February 4, 2008.
  2. ^ Sir Ben's Sexy honour, BBC News, December 31, 2001. Accessed February 4, 2008.
  3. ^ Total Film's list of The 50 Greatest Brit Flicks Ever, November 2004. Accessed February 4, 2008.
  4. ^ Thomas, Jeremy (April 11, 2006). ""At the Cutting Edge" – Producer Jeremy Thomas, interviewed by producer Sandy Lieberson". Berlinale Talent Campus. Retrieved April 3, 2010. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
  5. ^ "Sexy Beast (2001)". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved July 1, 2010.
  6. ^ Sexy Beast at Metacritic. Accessed February 4, 2008
  7. ^ Morris, Wesley. Kingsley a beauty in 'Sexy Beast'. His maniacal sadist adds frenzied edge, San Francisco Chronicle, March 15, 2002. Accessed February 4, 2008.
  8. ^ Gleiberman, Owen. Movie Review: Sexy Beast, Entertainment Weekly, June 22, 2001. Accessed February 4, 2008.
  9. ^ Edelstein, David. They Pull Me Back In: There's no escaping Ben Kingsley in the riotously entertaining Sexy Beast; The Fast and the Furious runs out of gas, Slate, June 22, 2001. Accessed February 4, 2008.
  10. ^ Travers, Peter. Sexy Beast:Review, Rolling Stone, June 15, 2001. Accessed February 4, 2008.
  11. ^ Turan, Kenneth. Sexy Beast: Stylish, but Very Nasty, Los Angeles Times, June 13, 2001. Accessed February 4, 2008.
  12. ^ Hunter, Stephen. 'Sexy Beast': Gandhi Goes Gangsta, Washington Post, June 22, 2001. Accessed February 4, 2008
  13. ^ Elley, Derek. Sexy Beast Review, Variety, September 21, 2000. Accessed February 4, 2008.

External links

Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Sexy_Beast&oldid=447010406"