Touted as one of the best films to come out of Britain since
Trainspotting, I went into this film with high hopes for a quality
British import like "
Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels". (which was just brilliant)
The movie opens with the film's protagonist, Gal Dove, played by Ray Winstone, complaining about how damned hot it is. Then, the camera cuts in with all too much footage of a well tanned, sweaty Dove in a yellow speedo. In fact, the first 10 minutes of the film is mostly Dove prancing around his pool, and putting iced washcloths on his crotch, as well as having questionable interactions with a young spanish boy he has helping him clean the pool. If that's supposed to be edgy or something, I'm appalled.
The movie continues in a really inane and completely nonlinear track with a lot of scenes of people sitting around having really boring conversations that seem completely unrelated to the plot in British accents. If I'm supposed to be intrigued, and interested in what's going on at this point, I'm not. In fact, I really don't care about any of the characters, and I still don't really know what the movie's about.
Then, the "bad guy" shows up. Ben Kingsley plays Don Logan, Dove's old boss. Apparently he wants Dove to come out of his retirement from robbery and help him with a job, and he won't take no for an answer. He's neurotic, psychotic, loud, offensive, abusive, and generally a complete jerk. He's the first character I care about, but I don't hate him, I just want him to shut up and stop using the words "f-ing c%*#" to describe everyone.
At this point, we're an hour into the movie, and nothing really interesting or important, or even the faintest glimmerings of a plot have emerged. Just a blaringly mismatched soundtrack, and a lot of yelling and swearing in British accents.
No, I'm sorry, it was at about this point that my cousin and I got up and left the discount movie theater. It wasn't the $3.25 I was worried about getting back, it was the hour of my life that this movie had soaked up that I wanted to reclaim at the ticket counter. The cute girl selling tickets should have warned me, "Go see anything else, please, this is a really awful movie."
I'd have rather been duct-taped to a chair and forced to watch "Manos, the Hands of Fate" for eons and eons.
Sexy Beast - 2000
Directed by Jonathan Glazer
Starring:
Ray Winstone - Gary "Gal" Dove
Ben Kingsley - Don Logan
Ian McShane - Teddy Bass
Amanda Redman - DeeDee
Cavan Kendall - Aitch
Julianne White - Jackie
Alvaro Monje - Enrique
Cast overview from http://www.imdb.com