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Sexy Beast

Sexy Beast

List Price: $19.98
Your Price: $15.98
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Great acting but...
Review: the dispicable characters have no redeeming qualities, and the violence is sickening (and I'm usually not squeamish).

I just didn't get the point of this one...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Incredibly tense, great performances, full of irony
Review: I needed a massage and a drink coming out of this film. I haven't seen such tension and emotional conflict in a film in years. Kingsley is amazing. All of the characters are complex and interesting. I DO NOT think of it as a comedy. It had it's funny moments, but I was not feeling jovial or even entertained by the end...more gripped and pulled into the story. Great filmmaking that pushes the medium. Highly Recommended.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Awful
Review: Kingsley is interesting and the visuals are good. Other than that, this movie is basically unwatchable. The sound is so badly edited that you'll find yourself raising and lowering the volume constantly. This, combined with the thick British accents, means US viewers may miss half the dialogue. The plot moves excruciatingly slowly --at least during the first two-thirds of the movie that I managed to watch. A guy walks around a swimming pool for 20 minutes while the soundtrack music plays. A bunch of people sit around a coffee table for 10 minutes not talking, while the soundtrack plays. It just goes on and on like that, so that not only are you clicking the volume up and down, you're fast-forwarding to find bits of the movie that will move the plot a little. Just awful.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Best Action Movie in Memory
Review: If Resevoir Dogs and Oceans Eleven were walking down the street, and they met boxer Danny Williams, the result might be a lot like the movie Sexy Beast.

This tough crime-oriented action is rich on drama and slick production. The photography is breathtaking, and the plot is subtle without being obscure or opaque.

The plot stumbles a bit in the first half, but primary plot resolution rips open an outstanding and unexpected turn of events. The movie is loaded with fine scenes and great acting, and a ton of wonderful dialogue.

Excellent writing, fantastic camera work, and beautiful production all come together in this DVD. The picture quality is a bit dark, but it perfectly fits the story. The audio production is perfect.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Refreshing twist on British caper genre
Review: Jonathan Glazer is best known for Jamiroquai music videos and TV commercials, but his first motion picture seems certain to change that. Sexy Beast is a remarkable movie that induces horror and guffaws of laughter in turns. Ben Kingsley puts in an astounding performance as the gangster who doesn't take 'no' for an answer, any scene including his hard and edgy Don Logan ripples with tension.

But what really sets this apart from movies like 'Snatch' or 'Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels' is its character focus. The relationship between ex-con Gary and his ex-porn-star wife Deedee feels genuine and is surprisingly touching. There were moments I actually got a little misty...

I'll be eagerly awaiting Glazer's next effort.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: What exactly is the sexy beast
Review: This is a solid film with a pivotal performance by Ben Kingsley who sheds his Gandhi persona to reveal one of the most revolting people who has ever set foot in the world. His clash with Ray Winstone is a memorable piece of cinema.

But there are some downsides as the film's language is disgusting. I cannot believe that even hard core gangsters talk as badly as represented here. The violence is realistically depicted and it is not attractive.

So what is there to recommend in this film. I really liked the jump cutting and back cutting and the energetic ways it moved to a climax. I liked the occasional dips into surrealism. There are scenes that are very tense. Just good cinema. The director had his roots in the music industry and it is another reminder of the great debt cinema is now owing the music video industry as a testing ground.

So what exactly is the sexy beast? There is a beast in the film and he - or she - is not remotely sexy. None of the characters ooze any sexual charisma, infact they are a fairly revolting group altogether - apart from the young boy. The sexy beast is inside our heads. It is the thing that drives us to our destruction. Well I think so.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Sexy Beast--there's no topping it, roight?
Review: If you know what you're watching, Sexy Beast holds up through multiple viewings. It's doesn't live or die on the surface plot, unlike most Hollywood heist pictures.

So what are you watching?

Well, for one thing, it's not a heist picture, a whodunit or a howdunit. It's a myth, a love story, a drama about class, power, money, and it's a comedy.

It's what Guy Ritchie was thrashing around for but couldn't find in Snatch.

It's what David Chase is going for in the Sopranos and sometimes finds, except he takes WAAAAAAY longer to do it.

Sexy Beast has savvy casting, pitch-perfect performances, and a tight, get-to-the-point script. If David Mamet watched this and picked up anything, he might learn to shut up and stop showing off. The mythic, the dramatic, and the comic blend seamlessly in this film, no small thanks to the fact that the central joke--that ferocious Ray Winstone quivers in the presence of tiny Ben Kingsley and the normally toothlessly debonair Ian McShane--works each time these actors hit the screen.

Great stuff. Now go watch it again.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Somebody shoot this guy already...
Review: I gave this movie 2 stars only for the fact that I could see it might have been better if Ben Kingsley's character wasn't in the movie. For 45 minutes I watched a pathetic excuse of a gangster go on a tyrade of verbal and physical abuse with everyone around him until I could bare no more. I had to turn it off before I fell asleep....this movie was amazingly boring and very unbelievable...no one could endure Kingsley's character as long as the characters in this movie...I know I didn't.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: A big Boredom.
Review: The screenplay is kinda weird. Kinsley is a very good actor but failed to deliver as a believable ganster only with loud mouth full of the [profane] words again and again. Kinda tiresome. The whole movie looked pretty dragged from the very beginning and I very doubt that the director and all the other members who shot this movie might fell asleep during the shooting. Very contrite and uninterested scenario even the the swimming pool drilling to get into the bank vault did not look so exciting. All in all, what's the purpose of shooting this aimless movie?

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Yes or no? YES YES YES YES YES
Review: Awesome neo-noir film. There are so many mediocre films these days, but this one totally energized me. It is strange, funny, and thrillingly tense. Kingsley is extraordinary--very menacing as a criminal supervisor, sent by superiors to round up a professional crew and pull a major heist. Kingsley is like a mafia drill instructor, preying on every weakness, ready to ridicule every statement and use physical intimidation to get the job done. It's an incredible performance, and everyone else is shockingly good as well. The gentleman that played Lovejoy on BBC is reptilian to the max, while Winstone's 'Gal' and his close friends perfectly express the inescapable despair and pressure of their situation. The dream sequences in which Winstone visualizes the beast are an interesting surreal counterpoint. It's hard to describe--a really cool, stylish film with excellent direction and cinematography, and a fine addition to the crime genre.


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