Sexy Beast

Does the title refer to the ex-con hero (Ray Winstone), happily retired on the Spanish Costa del Sol, or to his brutal ex-boss (Ben Kingsley), who turns up one day to browbeat him into helping with a bank heist? I don’t know, and after 91 minutes of this movie’s pile-driver aggression, I don’t care. My willingness to stay interested in the plot and be impressed by Kingsley’s show-offy performance as a staccato bully out of Harold Pinter was eventually undermined by the movie’s violent editing and violent sound, which, coming on top of the character, drove violence to the point of redundancy. The director is Jonathan Glazer, purportedly famous for commercials and musical videos and certainly unafraid to make a feature every bit as strident as these things normally are. Louis Mello and David Scinto wrote the script; with Ian McShane and Amanda Redman. (JR) Read more