Sexy Beast (DVD: November 2002)

Lining up alongside a host of glossy Brit Gangster flicks if late (The Limey, Gangster no.1), Sexy Beast stars Ray Winstone as the retired mug living the dream most movies have our tragic heroes chasing when he's called back to London for one last job.

Jonathan Glazer offers a nice spin on the old gangster fable as we glide through a landscape of the senses with a series of self-indulgent dreamy set pieces touting his talent to the rest of the advertising industry (remember the Guinness waves'n'horses ad, the Levi's one where they run through the walls - that was him) before bothering to introduce a plot (of sorts) with Winstone et al's Spanish paradise shattered by the arrival of the noughties most notable nutter so far, played by one Ben Kingsley.

Despite the cast's insistent references to the director as a poet, his inexperience shows through. We are treated to numerous sublime vignettes of his obvious talent yet when it comes to telling a story or structuring a scene beyond a minute the film falters. Glazer may be a poet but feature films are novels & said vignettes, no matter how stylish, won't cut it in the long run. Kingsley's distrubing performance is the driving force throughout & upon his absense our interest wains.

The final London heist scene - where the director should have left his stamp on the film & indeed the industry - is cut to ribbons & about as enthralling as Cat Deeley's new haircut. Robbed of it's atmosphere, what should have been the film's crescendo proves dull, needless, wanting & lacks any of the verve of the Spanish scenes. At 82 minutes the film proves cripplingly top heavy.

Sexy Beast is rapidly becoming something of an undiscovered cult classic. Wrongly so. It IS worth seeing just to watch the man who so famously played Gandhi come apart so spectacularly & uncomfortably but in his wake the film is simply beer goggles: begins beautiful & ends up a real minger.

RATING:

(c)Limer 2002