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| Sexy Beast | |
|---|---|
 Original film poster | |
| Directed by | Jonathan Glazer |
| Written by | Louis Mellis David Scinto |
| Produced by | Jeremy Thomas |
| Starring |
|
| Cinematography | Ivan Bird |
| Edited by | John Scott Sam Sneade |
| Music by | Roque Baños UNKLE South |
Production companies | |
| Distributed by | Fox Searchlight Pictures (United States) Hispano Foxfilms (Spain) FilmFour Distributors[1] (United Kingdom and Ireland) |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 88 minutes |
| Countries | United States United Kingdom Spain |
| Languages | English Spanish |
| Budget | $4.3 million[2] |
| Box office | $10.2 million[2] |
Sexy Beast is a 2000black comedycrime film directed byJonathan Glazer (in hisfeature film directorial debut) and written byLouis Mellis and David Scinto. It starsRay Winstone,Ben Kingsley, andIan McShane. It follows Gary "Gal" Dove (Winstone), a retired criminal visited by a sociopathic gangster (Kingsley) who demands that he take part in abank robbery in London.
Sexy Beast was critically acclaimed, and Kingsley's performance earned him anAcademy Award nomination forBest Supporting Actor.[3]Total Film namedSexy Beast the 15th bestBritish film. It was the final film to featureCavan Kendall, who died of cancer shortly after filming ended.[4]
British ex-criminal Gary "Gal" Dove is happily retired on theCosta del Sol with his beloved wife DeeDee, his best friend Aitch, and Aitch's wife Jackie. An old criminal associate, the feared sociopath Don Logan, arrives at Gal's villa, intent on enlisting Gal for a bank robbery inLondon planned by crime lord Teddy Bass. Teddy has learned about the bank vault from Harry, the bank's chairman, whom he met at anorgy. Gal declines, but Don continues to pressure Gal, growing increasingly aggressive and violent.
After Gal suggests that Don's real reason for visiting is his infatuation with Jackie, with whom he had a brief affair, Don grows furious and leaves. On the plane back to England, Don refuses to extinguish his cigarette prior to takeoff, is aggressive to staff and other passengers, and is ejected, but avoids punishment by claiming that a flight attendant sexually assaulted him. He returns to the villa screaming obscenities and attacks Gal with a glass. DeeDee emerges with Gal's hunting shotgun and shoots Don, incapacitating him; the group beat him to death and bury him under the swimming pool.
To avoid raising suspicion with Don's disappearance, Gal decides to do the job in London - preparing for the heist. When Teddy questions Gal about Don's whereabouts, Gal lies and claims that Don returned to London and called him from Heathrow Airport. The heist involves using diving gear to drill into the bank vault from a pool in a neighbouring bath house. The pool water muffles the sound of the drilling equipment and also floods the vault and shorts its security system. As Teddy's crew empties the vault'ssafe deposit boxes, Gal secretly pockets a pair of ruby and diamond earrings.
After the job, Teddy insists on driving Gal to the airport. He stops at Harry's home, where he shoots Harry and demands that Gal tell him where Don is. Gal responds that he is "not into this any more". While dropping Gal off, Teddy indicates that he knows that Gal was involved in something happening to Don, and implies that Gal would be severely punished if Teddy cared at all about Don. He suggests he may visit Gal in Spain and humiliates him by paying him only£10 for the job.
Gal returns to his friends and family in Spain, where DeeDee wears the earrings and life has returned to normal. Gal still hears Don's voice in his head; he responds that Don is dead now and can "shut up".
Sexy Beast was shot in London and Spain in the summer of 1999. Ray Winstone travelled to Spain two weeks before filming commenced to get as deep a tan as he could in the time possible and to eat as much as he could to bulk up considerably. He later called this "the best rehearsal time I've ever had in my life".[5] Winstone had originally been considered for the role of Don, along withAnthony Hopkins.[6]
The producerJeremy Thomas remembered his experience making the film:[7]
"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."
Technical elements of the heist have been compared with those in the 1979 filmSewers of Gold, which also starred McShane in the central role.[citation needed]
As of June 2024[update], the film has an approval rating of 87% onRotten Tomatoes, based on 141 reviews with an average rating of 7.30/10. The site's critical consensus states, "Sexy Beast rises above other movies in the British gangster genre due to its performances—particularly an electrifying one by Ben Kingsley—and the script's attention to character development."[8] OnMetacritic, it has a rating of 79/100, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[9]
It received praise from writers at theSan Francisco Chronicle,[10]Entertainment Weekly,[11]Slate,[12]Rolling Stone[13] and theLos Angeles Times.[14] Stephen Hunter ofThe Washington Post was less enthusiastic, describing the plot as "preposterous" and highlighting "Ben Kingsley spraying saliva-lubricated variants of the F-word into the atmosphere like anti-aircraft fire for 10 solid minutes" as the film's "one guilty pleasure".[15]
Slant Magazine named Ben Kingsley's role one the "15 Famous Movie Psychopaths".[16]
Sexy Beast grossed $10.2 million on a budget of $4.3 million, making it a relative box office success.[17]
Kingsley's performance received a majority of the accolades given toSexy Beast, winning Best Supporting Actor awards from theBroadcast 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 theToronto Film Critics Association. He also was nominated for aScreen Actors Guild Award (losing toIan McKellen for his performance inThe Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring), aGolden Globe and an Academy Award (losing both toJim Broadbent for his performance inIris).
The film also won Best Director and Best Screenplay from theBritish Independent Film Awards and Special Recognition ("For excellence in film making") from theNational Board of Review.
Original music for the film was composed by Spanish composer/saxophonistRoque Baños and English electronic bandUNKLE in collaboration withSouth .[18]Dean Martin's version of "Sway" accompanies the film's end credits. The soundtrack also includes "Peaches" byThe Stranglers, "Cuba" byThe Gibson Brothers, "G-Spot" byWayne Marshall, "Daddy Rollin' Stone" by Derek Martin, andHenry Mancini's "Lujon".
Brian Sella ofThe Front Bottoms attributes the band's name to a line spoken by Ben Kingsley in the film.[19] Another line spoken by Kingsley inspiredThe Kooks' song "Jackie Big Tits".[20]
A prequel television series based on the film was in development atParamount Network, which was being produced byParamount Television Studios andAnonymous Content. However, the series was scrapped by Paramount Network. On 15 February 2022, ViacomCBS Networks UK And Australia announced that the series was revived forParamount+, but would instead be produced by Train a Comin' Productions, Familystyle, Chapter One, Solas Mind,Anonymous Content and Paramount Television International Studios.[21] The eight-episode series was released on 25 January 2024.[22]
