Sexy Beast

For the 2024 prequel British TV show, see Sexy Beast (TV series). For the British reality TV show, see Sexy Beasts.

Sexy Beast
Original film poster
Directed by	Jonathan Glazer
Written by	Louis Mellis David Scinto
Produced by	Jeremy Thomas
Starring	Ray Winstone Ben Kingsley Ian McShane Amanda Redman Cavan Kendall Julianne White Álvaro Monje James Fox
Cinematography	Ivan Bird
Edited by	John Scott Sam Sneade
Music by	Roque Baños UNKLE South
Production companies	FilmFour Kanzaman S.A. Recorded Picture Company Jeremy Thomas Productions
Distributed by	Fox Searchlight Pictures (United States) Hispano Foxfilms (Spain) FilmFour Distributors (United Kingdom and Ireland)
Release dates	13 September 2000 (2000-09-13) (TIFF) 12 January 2001 (2001-01-12) (UK) 15 June 2001 (2001-06-15) (US) 8 March 2002 (2002-03-08) (Spain)
Running time	88 minutes
Countries	United States United Kingdom Spain
Languages	English Spanish
Budget	$4.3 million
Box office	$10.2 million

Sexy Beast is a 2000 black comedy crime film directed by Jonathan Glazer (in his feature film directorial debut) and written by Louis Mellis and David Scinto. It stars Ray Winstone, Ben Kingsley, and Ian McShane. It follows Gary "Gal" Dove (Winstone), a retired criminal visited by a sociopathic gangster (Kingsley) who demands that he take part in a bank robbery in London.

Sexy Beast was critically acclaimed, and Kingsley's performance earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In 2004, Total Film named Sexy Beast the 15th best British film. It was the final film to feature Cavan Kendall, who died of cancer shortly after filming ended.

Plot

British ex-criminal Gary "Gal" Dove is happily retired on the Costa 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 in London planned by crime lord Teddy Bass. Teddy has learned about the bank vault from Harry, the bank's chairman, whom he met at an orgy. 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's safe 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".

Cast

• Ray Winstone as Gary 'Gal' Dove, a retired criminal who married DeeDee and moved to Spain to start a new life
• Ben Kingsley as Don Logan, a violent sociopath and recruiter for the London underworld
• Ian McShane as Teddy Bass, a London crime boss
• Amanda Redman as DeeDee Dove, Gal's beloved wife and a former porn star
• James Fox as Harry, a banker who shows Bass the vault
• Cavan Kendall as Aitch, Dove's best friend
• Julianne White as Jackie, Aitch's wife, who had a fling with Don
• Álvaro Monje as Enrique, a Spanish houseboy who helps Gal around the house

Production

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". Winstone had originally been considered for the role of Don, along with Anthony Hopkins.

The producer Jeremy Thomas 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."

Technical elements of the heist have been compared with those in the 1979 film Sewers of Gold, which also starred McShane in the central role.

Reception

As of June 2024, the film has an approval rating of 87% on Rotten 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." On Metacritic, it has a rating of 79/100, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

It received praise from writers at the San Francisco Chronicle, Entertainment Weekly, Slate, Rolling Stone and the Los Angeles Times. Stephen Hunter of The 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".

Box office

Sexy Beast grossed $10.2 million on a budget of $4.3 million, making it a relative box office success.

Awards and honors

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).

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

Music

Original music for the film was composed by Spanish composer/saxophonist Roque Baños and English electronic band UNKLE in collaboration with South . Dean Martin's version of "Sway" accompanies the film's end credits. The soundtrack also includes "Peaches" by The Stranglers, "Cuba" by The Gibson Brothers, "G-Spot" by Wayne Marshall, "Daddy Rollin' Stone" by Derek Martin, and Henry Mancini's "Lujon".

In popular culture

Brian Sella of The Front Bottoms attributes the band's name to a line spoken by Ben Kingsley in the film. Another line spoken by Kingsley inspired The Kooks' song "Jackie Big Tits".

Prequel television series

Main article: Sexy Beast (TV series)

A prequel television series based on the film was in development at Paramount Network, which was being produced by Paramount Television Studios and Anonymous Content. However, the series was scrapped by Paramount Network. On 15 February 2022, ViacomCBS Networks UK And Australia announced that the series was revived for Paramount+, but would instead be produced by Train a Comin' Productions, Familystyle, Chapter One, Solas Mind, Anonymous Content and Paramount Television International Studios. The eight-episode series was released on 25 January 2024.

See also

• Gangster No. 1
• 44 Inch Chest
• Heist film
• List of hood films

External links

• Sexy Beast at the British Film Institute
• Sexy Beast at IMDb
• Sexy Beast at the TCM Movie Database
• Sexy Beast at AllMovie
• Sexy Beast at Box Office Mojo
• Sexy Beast at Rotten Tomatoes