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Sexy Beast
Fox Searchlight Pictures

Sexy Beast reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 79 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
7.6 out of 10
based on 30 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 48 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

MPAA RATING: R for pervasive language, strong violence and some sexuality

Starring Ray Winstone, Ben Kingsley, Ian McShane, Amanda Redman, Cavan Kendall, Julianne White, and Álvaro Monje

The story of one man's dangerous journey from peace of mind to paranoid panic when he's lured out of an idyllic retirement back to the gangster life. (Fox Searchlight)


GENRE(S): Suspense/Thriller  
WRITTEN BY: Louis Mellis
David Scinto
 
DIRECTED BY: Jonathan Glazer  
RELEASE DATE: DVD: March 12, 2002 
Video: March 12, 2002 
Theatrical: June 13, 2001 
RUNNING TIME: 88 minutes, Color 
ORIGIN: UK / Spain 

What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir
An extraordinary and original creation. It belongs alongside "Amores Perros" and "Memento" on a shortlist of 2001's most exciting revelations.
Read Full Review
100
San Francisco Chronicle Wesley Morris
A vicious horror flick with an actual beast and someone who just acts like one.
Read Full Review
100
Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman
Carries so much impacted menace and visual narrative gamesmanship that it brought back some of the excitement I felt nearly a decade ago watching Quentin Tarantino's ''Reservoir Dogs.''
Read Full Review
91
Portland Oregonian Staff (Not credited)
It's all jolly bad fun, but the primo aspect of the exercise is the phenomenally intense performance by Kingsley as a careening sociopath who is every bit as dangerous to his friends as to his foes.
Read Full Review
90
New York Magazine Peter Rainer
A flashy, nasty triumph
Read Full Review
90
Newsweek David Ansen
A demonstration of bravura acting.
90
Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan
Though it can overreach for emotional effect and overplay its hand at times -- Sexy Beast brings considerable virtues to telling this tale, including a great eye for faces and director Glazer's palpable excitement at working in the feature medium.
Read Full Review
90
Village Voice Amy Taubin
There are long stretches in Sexy Beast that are so exhilarating it feels churlish to dwell on its flaws.
Read Full Review
90
The New York Times Dana Stevens
He's (Kingsley) pure violence, a sociopath who radiates menace even while sitting perfectly still mouthing pleasantries.
Read Full Review
90
New Times (L.A.) Andy Klein
One of the compulsively watchable films this year, second only to "Memento." It's a must-see, except for those with a sensitivity to on-screen mayhem.
Read Full Review
90
Slate David Edelstein
The movie is riotously entertaining, and with a big heart, too.
Read Full Review
90
Rolling Stone Peter Travers
Kingsley creates an unforgettable monster. Acting rarely gets this hypnotically explosive.
Read Full Review
88
Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert
These are hard men. They could have the "Sopranos" for dinner, throw up and have them again.
Read Full Review
88
Chicago Tribune Robert K. Elder
A noir masterpiece with Oscar-caliber performances, Sexy Beast slowly turns up the heat until we squirm.
Read Full Review
88
New York Daily News Jami Bernard
Noir has never been this bright.
Read Full Review
88
Miami Herald Curtis Morgan
It is a riveting and memorable performance and Kingsley finds subtlety in Logan where there doesn't seem to be any.
Read Full Review
88
Philadelphia Inquirer Desmond Ryan
Glazer has a daring sense of story structure that ratchets up the suspense, and his sense for sardonic black comedy is unerring.
80
Washington Post Desson Thomson
A Molotov cocktail of a movie, an engaging conflagration of British B-flick, cockney wit and gallows humor. There's even a delicate little love story in there.
Read Full Review
80
LA Weekly Ella Taylor
Glazer shoots with the dreamy impressionism much favored in his principal line of work, all floaty slo-mos and in-your-face close-ups punctuated by a hard-driving rock score.
Read Full Review
80
Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
Appeal lies on the bright, shiny surface of its ostensibly simple plot, and in its rat-a-tat-tat language, which often sounds like Mamet-visits-Spyne.
80
Mr. Showbiz Michael Atkinson
Confident, mature, deeply conceived, and convincingly inhabited, it's a surprisingly humane film -- despite the close-range shotgun spray.
78
Austin Chronicle Marc Savlov
It smarts, and shocks, and just for a moment blows your mind.
Read Full Review
75
Boston Globe Jay Carr
Slightly misshapen and unbalanced, with a few loose ends, a few extraneous dream sequences. But there's something going on all the time.
75
Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker
Plays in spots something like a stage play smartly brought to screen.
Read Full Review
75
New York Post Lou Lumenick
A smart, funny, stylish and very violent British gangster movie.
Read Full Review
70
TV Guide Maitland McDonagh
The main event is the Mamet-esque battle of foul words between vintage hard-case Ray Winstone and the seething sociopath played by Ben Kingsley.
Read Full Review
70
Variety Derek Elley
Often enjoyable, massively uneven Brit ganglander with an almost surreal approach to the genre.
Read Full Review
63
Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow
Kingsley gives the movie a jolt and blows the rest of it to pieces.
40
Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum
Drove violence to the point of redundancy.
Read Full Review
10
Washington Post Stephen Hunter
In the end, I'm wondering what's so special about a film that has but one guilty pleasure and that's Ben Kingsley spraying saliva-lubricated variants of the F-word into the atmosphere like anti-aircraft fire for 10 solid minutes.
Read Full Review

What Our Users Said

Vote Now!The average user rating for this movie is 7.6 (out of 10) based on 48 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Stuart W. gave it a10:
An astonishing and entralling movie. Ben Kinsgley's performance is a revelation. Hard to believe that this is the same man who played Gandhi.

David O. gave it a10:
A gangster film with plenty of heart. Gal (Ray Winstone) is done. He's through with his old life, and just wants to be left alone -- but it's never that simple is it? When we do wrong it follows us around for the rest of our lives, just like Don Logan follows Gal and won't let him live in peace. Brilliant film-making with terrific acting and a wonderful script.

Margetis M. gave it an8:
A solid gangster picture that consistently entertaining and engrossing. Great performances all around including Ray Winstone and Deadwood's Ian McShane, but the real awe-inspiring performance comes from Ben Kingsley as incredibly evil Don Logan who provides us with his best performance ever creating the scariest villian to EVER come out of the movie world. It's also quite funny in some parts.

Rita P. gave it a9:
Would've given this film a 7 were it not for Ben Kingsley's amazing performance. Considered by many the finest actor of his time.

J. Hursty gave it a9:
someone says what is the point of it? The point is its real more real than other ganster movies and if you can't understand accents learn to speak english will ya.

Tommy C gave it a10:
This movie rocks. Ben Kingsly is amazing!

Buttered Popcorn gave it a 2:
Another movie which portends to put down violence, crime, and hatred, only to bask in violence, crime, and hatred. Nothing more than very dull people threatening and harming other dull people. Ben Kinglsey's performance is the only redeaming aspect of the film, but is soon grows tired. Very little or no redeeming value.

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