Sexy Beast (2000)
There is a moment early in Sexy Beast where Gal Dove, retired safecracker, is dozing by his swimming pool in the Spanish sunshine, the very picture of a man who has successfully left his old life behind, and you think: this is going to be a pleasant little film about a man dragged reluctantly back into crime. Then Ben Kingsley arrives, and pleasant goes straight out the window.
On paper, this is a heist film. Jonathan Glazer's 2000 debut concerns a retired criminal pressured into one last job, which is about as well-worn a premise as British crime cinema has to offer. What makes it extraordinary is that Glazer is barely interested in the heist itself. The robbery, when it finally arrives, is almost an afterthought. The film spends nearly all of its running time on a single, tightly wound situation: Gal, played by Ray Winstone, being slowly cornered by Don Logan, the unhinged enforcer sent to make sure he says yes. It is a chamber piece disguised as a genre film, and that focus on menace over mechanics turns out to be its masterstroke.
The reason it works, overwhelmingly, is Ben Kingsley. As Don Logan, he delivers what might be the most purely frightening villain turn I have seen in years. He is a coiled, foul-mouthed ball of aggression who can flip from wheedling to volcanic in the space of a single syllable, and the remarkable thing is how funny he is with it. The menace and the comedy are the same thing here. You are never quite sure whether to laugh or flinch, and that uncertainty is exactly where Glazer wants you. It is a jaw-dropping performance from an actor you might have comfortably filed under "dignified", and on this evidence I would happily call Don Logan a new favourite among screen villains. Kingsley earns that in every single scene he is in.
The film around him is far from a one-man show, mind. Winstone is quietly superb as Gal, all sun-baked calm giving way to creeping dread. He is the perfect still surface for Kingsley to shatter, and the dynamic between them is where the film does its best work. Ian McShane, meanwhile, brings his own brand of soft-spoken menace as the crime boss pulling the strings, all cold authority and deliberate stillness, the same quality he would later lend John Wick a decade and a half on.
Glazer directs it all with startling confidence for a first feature. The film is lean and propulsive, with a visual style that is striking without ever calling attention to itself, and you can already glimpse the bold, unsettling instincts of the filmmaker who would later produce something as singular as Under the Skin (2013). Both films share a willingness to let atmosphere do the heavy lifting, to trust that dread is more interesting than explanation.
Taken purely on its bones, Sexy Beast is a modest, well-crafted little crime story. What lifts it into something genuinely unforgettable is what Glazer and his cast do within those bones. It is lean, tense, blackly funny and completely gripping from the moment Logan steps off the plane, and it is built around a performance for the ages. Kingsley carries it, no question, but he is carrying something well worth the effort.
Four stars, and required viewing for anyone who reckons they have exhausted every variety of screen gangster there is.
Rating: ★★★★ | Year: 2000 | Watched: 2026-08-26
Where to watch
Watch in the UK
Stream: Channel 4 Plus
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