Sexy Beast

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

Kingsley's performance earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor. In 2004 the magazine Total Film named Sexy Beast the 15th best British film.

Plot
Ex-convict Gary "Gal" Dove is happily retired in Spain with his beloved wife DeeDee, best friend Aitch and Aitch's wife Jackie. A boulder falls from a hill, nearly hits him, and lands in his swimming pool, damaging its double-heart insignia. After an unsuccessful rabbit hunt with Aitch and Enrique, a Spanish boy who helps him around the house, Gal has a dream of a demonic, anthropomorphic rabbit pointing a gun at him.

An old criminal associate, the feared sociopath Don Logan, arrives at Gal's villa, intent on enlisting Gal for a bank robbery in London. Crime lord Teddy Bass learned about the vault from Harry, the bank's chairman, whom he met at an orgy. Gal politely declines, but Logan grows increasingly aggressive and violent. After Gal suggests Logan's real reason for visiting is his infatuation with Jackie, Logan grows furious and demands to be taken to the airport. On the plane, Logan refuses to extinguish his cigarette prior to take-off, is aggressive to staff, and is ejected. He tells the investigator the cabin crew sexually harassed him and is released.

Logan returns to the villa screaming obscenities and attacks Gal with a bottle. Enrique threatens him with a gun, but Logan disarms him. DeeDee shoots Logan with a shotgun and she, Jackie and Gal beat him. When Logan tells Aitch he had sex with Jackie, Aitch crushes his head with a barbeque set.

In London, Bass asks Gal where Logan is. Gal claims Logan called him from Heathrow Airport. In the morning, Gal has another vision of the demonic rabbit. As Gal eats breakfast, Bass arrives and asks again where Logan is. Gal continues to feign ignorance.

During the heist, Bass's crew use diving gear to drill into Harry's vault from a pool in a neighbouring bath house. The pool water floods the vault and shorts its security system. As the crew empties the vault's safe deposit boxes, Gal secretly pockets a pair of ruby earrings encrusted with diamonds.

After the job, Bass insists on driving Gal to the airport. He stops at Harry's home, where he kills Harry and demands Gal tell him where Logan is. Gal responds that he is "not into this any more". In the car, Bass angrily tells Gal that he does not care about Logan. He pays Gal £10 for the job, giving him a twenty-pound-note and demanding change, then drives away.

Gal returns to his friends and family in Spain, where DeeDee wears the earrings. Gal hears Logan's voice tell him that he knew Gal would do the job; Gal responds that Logan is dead now and can shut up. The demonic rabbit opens a coffin beneath the swimming pool, revealing Logan, who exhales smoke with contempt.

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 after having sex with him
 * Cavan Kendall as Aitch, Dove's best friend
 * Julianne White as Jackie, Aitch's wife, who had a fling with Logan
 * Álvaro Monje as Enrique, a Spanish boy who helps Gal around the house

Production
Producer Jeremy Thomas later 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 "dumb", and 400 "stupid", but somehow it passed the censorship and got out there."

Reception
The film has an aggregate rating of 86% on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 131 reviews. 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%, indicating "generally favorable reviews". It received 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.

Awards and honours
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 by English electronic band South and also Spanish composer/saxophonist Roque Baños. 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" (from the 1961 LP "Mr. Lucky Goes Latin").

Cultural Influence
Vocalist and guitarist Brian Sella of American folk punk band The Front Bottoms attributes the band’s name to this film.