Sexy Beast (2001)
Directed by Jonathan Glazer
Ex-safecracker Gal Dove has served his time behind bars and is blissfully retired to a Spanish villa paradise with a wife he adores. The idyll is shattered by the arrival of his nemesis Don Logan, intent on persuading Gal to return to London for one last big job.
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13 films that influenced Sexy Beast
What critics say influenced Sexy Beast
The casting of James Fox in a supporting role and the sporadic fracturing of continuity – in the middle of a fateful confrontation, the movie simply leaps ahead in time, filling in the gaps later with teasing flashback snippets – evokes memories of Nicolas Roeg and Donald Cammell’s Performance.
That opening scene serves as a dark and funny omen for what follows in this stylish thriller that evokes numerous British crime dramas like "Performance" and "The Long Good Friday."
Other pleasures include a chilling performance by Ian McShane, and the welcome reappearance of James Fox in a criminal setting, an echo of "Performance", more than 30 years ago.
From "Get Carter" and "The Long Good Friday" through "Croupier" and "Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels," U.K. filmmakers have shown a liking and facility for crime stories featuring hard guys tested by intolerable dilemmas.
That opening scene serves as a dark and funny omen for what follows in this stylish thriller that evokes numerous British crime dramas like "Performance" and "The Long Good Friday."
"Sexy Beast" falls somewhere between the best of the genre - "The Long Good Friday," for example, and the stylish hijinks of Guy Ritchie's "Snatch."
The purposeful violence of Brit mobsters at cross-purposes recalls Villain (which, not incidentally, also co-starred Ian McShane), The Long Good Friday and the original 1971 Get Carter.
And unlike most of the classic robbery movies-Jules Dassin's "Rififi" and "Topkapi" or even the "Topkapi"-influenced sequences of the first "Mission: Impossible" movie -the elaborate thievery around which the movie revolves is not just icing, it's anticlimax.
He is Don Logan, a fear-of-God- inspiring bloke who reaches for the scope and menace of Don Corleone, Keyser Soze and Bill Murray in "What About Bob?"
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And unlike most of the classic robbery movies-Jules Dassin's "Rififi" and "Topkapi" or even the "Topkapi"-influenced sequences of the first "Mission: Impossible" movie -the elaborate thievery around which the movie revolves is not just icing, it's anticlimax.
He spitefully pees on the bathroom rug and talks to himself in the mirror, a la "Taxi Driver."
Like Steven Soderburgh's 1999 revenge sleeper "The Limey", first-time director Jonathan Glazer's "Sexy Beast" is a film that takes a familiar premise - in this case, a retired thief who is asked to pull one last job - and makes it exciting again through the use of interesting characters, elegant camerawork and exhilarating storytelling.
The title of "Sexy Beast," the most original and entertaining crime thriller since "The Limey," ironically refers to Logan, sexy only in that he's irresistible; when he tells you to look at him or look away, you disobey at the risk of death or dismemberment.
Sexy Beast follows the pattern of British crime thrillers like The Limey and Get Carter , but unlike many movies in its vein, Sexy Beast is more about conveying an attitude than telling a story.
Like Orson Welles' Harry Lime in "The Third Man" or Keyser Soze in "The Usual Suspects," Don Logan is the Bogeyman, his name unspeakable even on the lips of the devil.
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There's no telling what he's capable of, and he makes Joe Pesci's character from "Goodfellas" seem like Mother Theresa by comparison.
While the action is played out in Spain and England, most of the players could be transplanted into Tarantino's "Pulp Fiction" or "Reservoir Dogs" and feel right at home.