Sexy Beast

Director Jonathan Glazer does such a spectacular job of drawing the audience into this edgy, oily, feral British crime thriller that you can almost feel the 100-degree heat at retired bank robber Gary "Gal" Dove's (Ray Winstone) modest desert villa, where Gal's gangland nemesis Don Logan (Ben Kingsley, in a viciously intimidating Oscar-nominated performance) arrives--uninvited--to demand Gal's services for one more big heist. The first half of Sexy Beast is almost entirely dialogue as a savage battle of wills erupts between Don and Gal when the latter refuses the job. The second half finds Gal in London, anyway, helping break into a bank after Don's conspicuous disappearance. Some may lump this into the Guy Ritchie sub-genre of high-octane British caper flicks (Snatch; Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels), but Sexy Beast is a much more eloquent and exacting film in which the style is only a function of the substance thanks to Glazer's sun-drenched, yet distinctively film noir, direction and the incredible acting of Winstone and Kingsley. Highly recommended. (R. Blackwelder)