Swank, this summer, just got a little swanker with the release of the Brit
ganglander Sexy Beast. Schizophrenically set in the gloomy streets of
London and a posh hillside villa on the sun-soaked coast of Spain, this debut
from Jonathan Glazer is a devilishly naughty ride into the shady other-lives
of a couple of ex-cons who get involved in a one-more-for-old-time’s-sake sure
thing.
The slightly pudgy, sharply dressing, and eminently lovable Gal Dove (Ray
Winstone) is living the life of Riley with his former porn-star wife Deedee
(Amanda Redman) on a Spanish coast magnificently captured by cinematographer
Ian Bird. In luxury’s lap, they and their friends (and eternal guests) Aitch
and Jackie fashion quite a hot and steamy poolside foursome. Their collective
dreamlives among desert lounge-rat exotica include martinis endlessly
trickling, the sun beating them into submissive bliss, and a requisite
fetching, native pool boy, as they gleefully achieve the purest form of
hedonism that exists: escaping the sordid past. Theirs is a Shangri-la with
fresh paella.
When the phone rings with Don Logan (Ben Kingsley) on the other end, paradise
is abruptly lost. The mood is further soured when ‘Malky’ Logan shows up
uninvited with an offer Gal can’t refuse which involves an impregnable bank
and a trip back to the dismal toilet of England. All bloody hell breaks loose
when Logan will not accept no for an answer from his former partner and wildly
vents his fury on anyone within striking range of his tweaked, on the verge of
boiling-over aura.
As a foul-mouthed, terribly dressed, tattoo-sporting, mean-looking, cockney-
accented, kick-ass Ghandi, Kingsley becomes the film. Like his maniacally
focused eyes, his characterization of one obsessed with the nihilism of
obsession is enthralling and creepy and will make you sink into your seat. The
film’s focus on his portrayal of a driven psychopath tiptoeing the borderline
is the beast that overpowers a see-through plot that, in light of the actor s
performance, wanes incidental. The darkness that Kingsley unleashes overpowers
all else.
The heist of a bank in Londontown, planned during a slow point of an orgy, is
what the team of pros rounded up by Logan have set their sights on.
Considering its proximity to a Turkish bath and the general improbability of
the logistics, the robbery is nevertheless filmed so imaginatively that we are
mesmerized and immersed in the scene of the crime. Known for his U.K. Guinness
commercials and videos for Radiohead and Jamiroquai, Glazer unites a gangster
tale, a love story, and a psychological Jekyll and Hyde portrait in a visual
style heavily indebted to the glitz of those fast-paced genres. Peppered with
vignettes that include slow-motion unreality colored in Dali light and
inhabited at times by a furry, disgusting creature that we never quite get to
see close-up, the story is threaded together with scenes of unadulterated
strangeness. These moments seem inspired by the desolate locale, or perhaps
they re mini-tributes to the surreal filmmaker Luis Bu§uel.
More such reveries of the fantastic could have helped the flow of a dreamily
buoyant story that opens with a silly and shocking Python-esque thrill, to say
no more. Energized by a soundtrack that ranges from pulse-pounding techno, to
the trip-hoppy Unkle and South, to the lounge sounds of Dean Martin and Latin
flavorings of Roque Ba§os, the soundtrack pumps the visuals along. Sexy
Beast sounds really good. It looks really good. It feels really good. And
if it s so, so good, then it should be bad.
But it isn t. The pace slows but never lets up entirely. This is largely due
to the lesser of two evils, Mr. Black Magic, Teddy Bass, the big boss icily
played by Ian McShane. He is as striking and collected as any recent
incarnation of Beelzebub. His presence escorts Gal through the final circles
of a personal hell. The anti-climactic resolution to their conflict is edgy
and keeps us hanging. What s spookiest and keeps Gal sleeping with one eye
open is the terror of what might happen: the ghost in the plot. Always, there
s the ghoulie waiting to reappear.
For its speedy 88-minute duration, the film is chaos controlled and unleashed
in a nouveau-noir style: light on the distractions and heavy on action and eye
candy. What makes it swing, as in any crime worth committing, is its many
unpredictable turns due to inevitable eff-ups. Overlooking the
superficialities of details, details, details, this beast of a movie owes a
little to the Coen Brothers Blood Simple and to Tarantino in its visual
nightmare a hairbreadth away from screaming reality. It really has, as
reported by Sundance News, the coolest ending of the year. This film is
definitely a weird immorality tale that s as sexy as the beast himself. Run to
see it and worship at the evil Kingsley s altar!
