Sexy Beast │ Second Sight Films
Courtesy of Second Sight Films
by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
Just over two weeks ago we lost the independent British film producer Jeremy Thomas, aged 77, whose credits included the Oscar-winning The Last Emperor, Nagisa Oshima’s Merry Christmas Mr Lawrence and Sexy Beast, among over 80 producing credits. This week sees the release of a limited edition dual 4K UHD and Blu-ray fully-restored version of Sexy Beast from Second Sight Films, complete with a slew of amazing extras.
In particular I was struck by the in-depth interview with Jeremy Thomas himself, who speaks directly to camera for what must be about 25 minutes, without hesitation and quite modestly. It must have been one of the very last interviews he ever gave and it is a quite enlightening picture of the moving picture process, and in particular about the making of Sexy Beast. He claims that from the time he first read the screenplay, and made a couple of telephone calls to raise the money, the film was ready for distribution within one year. He just had a gut reaction about the screenplay by Louis Mellis and David Scinto, and by a new director called Jonathan Glazer.
Thomas also cites The Long Good Friday more than once as an influence, as one of the great British gangster movies – and having just revisited the film again last month, I have to say that Sexy Beast is by far the more powerful and, indeed, better film. The reason for this is not just its visual authority but the extraordinary performances from a trio of actors you wouldn’t want to cross swords with. It’s very much a gangster movie, and hence a genre piece, and it’s extraordinary to imagine what Jonathan Glazer has gone on to achieve in his quarter-century career, with Birth, starring Nicole Kidman, Under the Skin, with Scarlett Johansson, and the Bafta and Oscar-winning The Zone of Interest. Just four films in 26 years and each one remarkable in its own right.
Courtesy of Second Sight Films
Sexy Beast doesn’t open like any ordinary gangster movie, just the sight of a near-naked Ray Winstone lying like a beached whale at the side of his swimming pool in Spain. And, then, out of the blue, a boulder dislodged from the mountainside narrowly misses him and makes a major splashdown in his pool. But that, as it turns out, is the least of his worries as his good friends and neighbours Aich and Jackie receive a call from London, from a certain Don Logan. We already know that Ray Winstone’s Gal is a retired gangster and is living the life of Reilly on the Costa del Sol, where all good gangsters go to retire. But Don Logan is bad news and he’s a hard man to say ‘no’ to, although Gal’s wife DeeDee (Amanda Redman) begs him to refuse any further offers of criminal activity. However, Don Logan is already on the way to Gal and DeeDee’s luxury villa and we know that things will never be the same again.
Don Logan is played by Ben Kingsley, he who won an Oscar for playing the humanitarian Mahatma Gandhi, and we’ve never seen him like this before. He is unequivocally terrifying. Sir Ben is one of those actors who can freeze the blood in your veins just through a stare, through a stillness of his comportment, and he is at his very best here. I remember how frightening he was when I first saw the film 26 years ago but, if anything, he seems even more formidable now. It’s one of the great performances of British gangster-dom, although Ian McShane, in an even more low-key performance, is just as chilling as another London hood.
The film holds up astonishingly well, heralding an amazing new talent in director Jonathan Glazer, and it comes with the best set of extras and bonus material I can remember encountering in years. Sexy Beast is available from Second Sight Films on Blu-Ray, 4K UHD, and in a limited edition box set with a 160-page hardback book, from September 28.
Second Sight Films release of Sexy Beast is now available on Blu-ray
SECOND SIGHT FILMS is a UK 4K UHD, Blu-ray and digital distributor, specialising in new, classic and cult film from around the world. An independent company established in 1994, they have built a reputation for high quality restorations, bonus feature production, archive material and additional physical content such as books, artcards and premium packaging for Limited Edition box set releases.
