Sexy Beast
Encyclopedia
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
, and commercials for companies such as Guinness and Levi.
The film earned Kingsley an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor
. In 2004 the magazine Total Film
named Sexy Beast the 15th greatest British film
of all time.
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 storming away in a rage, Logan boards his plane back to England, only to be kicked off for refusing to put out his cigarette. He returns to Dove's home with ominous intentions, smashing a wine glass into Dove's ear. Deedee shoots Don with a shotgun, immobilizing him. The four friends join in their efforts to kill him, first beating him, stomping him, shooting him again, 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 box
es, Dove secretly pockets a pair of large ruby
earrings encrusted with diamond
s. After the job is successfully completed, Dove's lack of joviality further raises Bass's 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, Bass 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.
later remembered his experience making the film:
, based on 117 reviews. 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. It received high praise from writers at the San Francisco Chronicle
, Entertainment Weekly
, Slate
, Rolling Stone
and the Los Angeles Times
, but was panned by Stephen Hunter of the 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." It was also described as "often enjoyable" but "massively uneven" by Variety
.
'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.
Crime film
Crime films are films which focus on the lives of criminals. The stylistic approach to a crime film varies from realistic portrayals of real-life criminal figures, to the far-fetched evil doings of imaginary arch-villains. Criminal acts are almost always glorified in these movies.- Plays and films...
drama film
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
directed by Jonathan Glazer
Jonathan Glazer
Jonathan Glazer is an English director of films, commercials and music videos.-Biography:After studying theatre design at Nottingham Trent University, Glazer started out directing theatre and making film and television trailers, including award-winning work for the BBC...
and starring Ray Winstone
Ray Winstone
Raymond Andrew "Ray" Winstone is an English film and television actor. He is mostly known for his "tough guy" roles, beginning with that of Carlin in the 1979 film Scum and as Will Scarlet in the cult television adventure series Robin of Sherwood. He has also become well known as a voice over...
, Ben Kingsley
Ben Kingsley
Sir Ben Kingsley, CBE is a British actor. He has won an Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in his career. He is known for starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the film Gandhi in 1982, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...
, and Ian McShane
Ian McShane
Ian David McShane is an English actor, director, producer, voice artist, and comedian.Despite appearing in numerous films, McShane is best known for his television roles, particularly the BBC's Lovejoy and HBO's Western drama Deadwood...
. Produced by Jeremy Thomas
Jeremy Thomas
Jeremy Jack Thomas, CBE is a British film producer, founder of the Recorded Picture Company. He was the producer of Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor, which won the 1988 Academy Award for Best Picture. In 2006 he received a European Film Award for Outstanding European Achievement in World...
, it was Glazer's debut feature film, who had previously been a music video
Music video
A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...
director for videos such as Rabbit in Your Headlights for British electronica
Electronica
Electronica includes a wide range of contemporary electronic music designed for a wide range of uses, including foreground listening, some forms of dancing, and background music for other activities; however, unlike electronic dance music, it is not specifically made for dancing...
group UNKLE
UNKLE
Unkle are a British musical outfit founded in 1994 by school friends James Lavelle and Tim Goldsworthy. Originally categorized as trip-hop, the group once included producer DJ Shadow and have employed a variety of guest artists and producers.-First incarnation :Lavelle and Goldsworthy were joined...
, and commercials for companies such as Guinness and Levi.
The film earned Kingsley an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor
Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role is one of the Academy Awards of Merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actor who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry. Since its inception, however, the...
. In 2004 the magazine Total Film
Total Film
Total Film is a British film magazine published 13 times a year by Future Publishing. The magazine was launched in 1997 and offers film, DVD and Blu-ray news, reviews and features...
named Sexy Beast the 15th greatest British film
Cinema of the United Kingdom
The United Kingdom has had a major influence on modern cinema. The first moving pictures developed on celluloid film were made in Hyde Park, London in 1889 by William Friese Greene, a British inventor, who patented the process in 1890. It is generally regarded that the British film industry...
of all time.
Plot
Ex-con and expert safe-crackerSafe-cracking
Safe-cracking is the process of opening a safe without either the combination or key. It may also refer to a computer hacker's attempts to break into a secured computer system, in which case it may be shortened to "cracking" or black hat hacking....
Gary "Gal" Dove (Ray Winstone
Ray Winstone
Raymond Andrew "Ray" Winstone is an English film and television actor. He is mostly known for his "tough guy" roles, beginning with that of Carlin in the 1979 film Scum and as Will Scarlet in the cult television adventure series Robin of Sherwood. He has also become well known as a voice over...
) has served his time behind bars and blissfully retired to a Spanish
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
villa
Villa
A villa was originally an ancient Roman upper-class country house. Since its origins in the Roman villa, the idea and function of a villa have evolved considerably. After the fall of the Roman Republic, villas became small farming compounds, which were increasingly fortified in Late Antiquity,...
with his beloved wife Deedee (Amanda Redman
Amanda Redman
-External links:* ArtistsTheatreSchool.com* The-Little.co.uk...
). 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
Ben Kingsley
Sir Ben Kingsley, CBE is a British actor. He has won an Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in his career. He is known for starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the film Gandhi in 1982, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...
), who is intent on enlisting Gal in a bank heist back in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
.
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 storming away in a rage, Logan boards his plane back to England, only to be kicked off for refusing to put out his cigarette. He returns to Dove's home with ominous intentions, smashing a wine glass into Dove's ear. Deedee shoots Don with a shotgun, immobilizing him. The four friends join in their efforts to kill him, first beating him, stomping him, shooting him again, 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
Orgy
In modern usage, an orgy is a sex party where guests engage in promiscuous or multifarious sexual activity or group sex. An orgy is similar to debauchery, which refers to excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures....
. 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
Surface supplied diving
Surface supplied diving refers to divers using equipment supplied with breathing gas using a diver's umbilical from the surface, either from the shore or from a diving support vessel sometimes indirectly via a diving bell...
and drill into Harry's bank vault from a pool in a neighbouring bath house
Public bathing
Public baths originated from a communal need for cleanliness. The term public may confuse some people, as some types of public baths are restricted depending on membership, gender, religious affiliation, or other reasons. As societies have changed, public baths have been replaced as private bathing...
. The water from the pool floods the vault and shorts its security system. While helping to empty the vault's safe deposit box
Safe deposit box
A safe deposit box or wrongly referred to as a safety deposit box is an individually-secured container, usually held within a larger safe or bank vault. Safe deposit boxes are generally located in banks, post offices or other institutions...
es, Dove secretly pockets a pair of large ruby
Ruby
A ruby is a pink to blood-red colored gemstone, a variety of the mineral corundum . The red color is caused mainly by the presence of the element chromium. Its name comes from ruber, Latin for red. Other varieties of gem-quality corundum are called sapphires...
earrings encrusted with diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...
s. After the job is successfully completed, Dove's lack of joviality further raises Bass's 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, Bass 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 WinstoneRay WinstoneRaymond Andrew "Ray" Winstone is an English film and television actor. He is mostly known for his "tough guy" roles, beginning with that of Carlin in the 1979 film Scum and as Will Scarlet in the cult television adventure series Robin of Sherwood. He has also become well known as a voice over...
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 KingsleyBen KingsleySir Ben Kingsley, CBE is a British actor. He has won an Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in his career. He is known for starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the film Gandhi in 1982, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...
as Don Logan, a recruiter for the London underworld, who puts people together into teams to pull off various heists. A cunning, violent sociopathAntisocial personality disorderAntisocial personality disorder is described by the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, fourth edition , as an Axis II personality disorder characterized by "...a pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others that begins in childhood...
, 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 DVDDVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
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 McShaneIan McShaneIan David McShane is an English actor, director, producer, voice artist, and comedian.Despite appearing in numerous films, McShane is best known for his television roles, particularly the BBC's Lovejoy and HBO's Western drama Deadwood...
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 RedmanAmanda Redman-External links:* ArtistsTheatreSchool.com* The-Little.co.uk...
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 FoxJames FoxJames Fox, OBE is an English actor.-Early life:James Fox was born in London, England to theatrical agent Robin Fox and actress Angela Worthington. He is the brother of actor Edward Fox and film producer Robert Fox. The actress Emilia Fox is his niece and the actor Laurence Fox is his son. His...
as Harry, a bisexualBisexualityBisexuality is sexual behavior or an orientation involving physical or romantic attraction to both males and females, especially with regard to men and women. It is one of the three main classifications of sexual orientation, along with a heterosexual and a homosexual orientation, all a part of the...
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 SpanishSpanish peopleThe Spanish are citizens of the Kingdom of Spain. Within Spain, there are also a number of vigorous nationalisms and regionalisms, reflecting the country's complex history....
boy who helps Gal out around the house.
Production
Producer Jeremy ThomasJeremy Thomas
Jeremy Jack Thomas, CBE is a British film producer, founder of the Recorded Picture Company. He was the producer of Bernardo Bertolucci's The Last Emperor, which won the 1988 Academy Award for Best Picture. In 2006 he received a European Film Award for Outstanding European Achievement in World...
later remembered his experience making the film:
Reception
The film has received very positive reviews, currently holding an aggregate rating of 85 percent on Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, based on 117 reviews. Another aggregate review website, Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, 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. It received high praise from writers at the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
, Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
, Slate
Slate (magazine)
Slate is a US-based English language online current affairs and culture magazine created in 1996 by former New Republic editor Michael Kinsley, initially under the ownership of Microsoft as part of MSN. On 21 December 2004 it was purchased by the Washington Post Company...
, Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
and the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
, but was panned by Stephen Hunter of the Washington Post who described some of the film's moments as "Ben Kingsley spraying saliva-lubricated variants of the F-word
Fuck
"Fuck" is an English word that is generally considered obscene which, in its most literal meaning, refers to the act of sexual intercourse. By extension it may be used to negatively characterize anything that can be dismissed, disdained, defiled, or destroyed."Fuck" can be used as a verb, adverb,...
into the atmosphere like anti-aircraft fire for 10 solid minutes." It was also described as "often enjoyable" but "massively uneven" by Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
.
Awards and nominations
Ben KingsleyBen Kingsley
Sir Ben Kingsley, CBE is a British actor. He has won an Oscar, BAFTA, Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards in his career. He is known for starring as Mohandas Gandhi in the film Gandhi in 1982, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor...
's performance received a majority of the accolades given to Sexy Beast, winning Best Supporting Actor awards from the Broadcast Film Critics Association
Broadcast Film Critics Association
The Broadcast Film Critics Association is the largest film critics organization in the United States and Canada , representing approximately 250 television, radio and online critics....
, Boston Society of Film Critics
Boston Society of Film Critics
The Boston Society of Film Critics is an organization of film reviewers from Boston, Massachusetts, United States, based publications.The BSFC was formed in 1981 to make "Boston's unique critical perspective heard on a national and international level by awarding commendations to the best of the...
, Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association
Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association
The Dallas-Fort Worth Film Critics Association is an organization of 35 print, radio/TV and internet journalists from Dallas-Fort Worth-based publications...
, Florida Film Critics Circle
Florida Film Critics Circle
The Florida Film Critics Circle is an organization of film reviewers from fourteen Florida-based publications and websites. In December, the FFCC meets to vote on their awards for films released during that year.- Categories :* Best Actor...
, San Diego Film Critics Society
San Diego Film Critics Society
The San Diego Film Critics Society is an organization of film reviewers from San Diego-based publications.Each year the SDFCS meets to vote on their San Diego Film Critics Society Awards for films released in the same calendar year....
, Southeastern Film Critics Association
Southeastern Film Critics Association
The Southeastern Film Critics Association is an organization of film reviewers from publications based in the Southeastern United States....
and the Toronto Film Critics Association
Toronto Film Critics Association
The Toronto Film Critics Association is an organization of film reviewers from Toronto-based publications. As of 1999, the TFCA is member of FIPRESCI.-History:...
. He also was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award (losing to Ian McKellen
Ian McKellen
Sir Ian Murray McKellen, CH, CBE is an English actor. He has received a Tony Award, two Academy Award nominations, and five Emmy Award nominations. His work has spanned genres from Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction...
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
Jim Broadbent
James "Jim" Broadbent is an English theatre, film, and television actor. He is known for his roles in Iris, Moulin Rouge!, Topsy-Turvy, Hot Fuzz, and Bridget Jones' Diary...
for his performance in Iris).
In addition, the film also won Best Director and Best Screenplay from the British Independent Film Awards
British Independent Film Awards
The Moët British Independent Film Awards is an annual award ceremony celebrating achievement in independently funded British film and cinema. Nominations and jury are announced at the beginning of November with the award ceremony taking place in late November or early December.-History:The British...
and Special Recognition ("For excellence in filmmaking") from the National Board of Review.