Rating: 
Summary: Do The Job! Yesyesyesyesyes!!!!!!
Review: This one passed UK cinemas by VERY quickly, getting some fine reviews, but no audience. I read a bit about it, then rented it when it came out. I was totally floored, even though i expected it to be good, it blew me away. I had to rent it again a couple of days later to show my friends. Then a couple of days later again. I have bought the film 3 times on DVD, as i keep giving mine away to try and spread the word about this amazing film. It's best not to know too much, just check it out. Brilliant!!!!
Rating: 
Summary: A Different Kind of Thriller
Review: Ben Kingsley deservedly got an Academy Award nomination as a hit man with ADD in this unusual and darkly comic thriller.Ray Winstone plays Gal, a retired hit man that is ordered by Don Logan (Kingsley) to do one more job. When Gal expresses reservations about it, Logan refuses to take no for an answer. What follows is a test of wills between Logan and members of Gal's party. The story has plenty of twists and turns with a few surprises. If you're into crime films and not put off my on-screen violence, this is a must see. If you're not, you'll probably want to see something a bit tamer. Overall, a great movie for crime fans. It's also very funny. The ending must be seen to be believed.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing
Review: This is simply the best movie of last year. Everything is phenomenal. The acting is amazing (Ben Kingsley rocks!), the director and DP are a genius team, the story is great and the sets and locations are beautiful. This is a movie to both study and enjoy if you are involved in the entertainment business. If you're not, just have fun and enjoy, and hopefully you'll be able to see what makes this movie such a masterpiece.
Rating:
Summary: Men would pull their own heads off rather than see Don Logan
Review: There's a line in a Monty Python sketch about the effect a criminal has on his underlings: "I've seen men pull their own heads off rather than see Doug." That's the effect the news that Don Logan is coming to town has on retired criminal Gal. Gal's settled into his relaxing, lazy days under the Spanish sun, until a boulder the size of a small house flies over his head and rolls into his treasured swimming pool. Can you say "symbolic foreshadowing," boys and girls?...because Don Logan's about to slam into Gal's leisurely life with all the force and violence of a landslide, sent to recruit Gal out of retirement for one last heist, and absolutely NOT taking "no" for an answer . In a movie where much of the first half consists of conflict through dialogue (it's almost a stage play in set-up), the performances are key, and "Sexy Beast" has no weak links. Ray Winstone has the unenviable task of holding his own against Ben Kingsley, and succeeds uncannily without resorting to caricature. His fear is palpable--you can almost smell the sweat at his being cornered like a rabbit with no way to break out. Even perennial TV guest star Ian McShane excels in the role of a slick and cunning criminal boss, a performance that breaks out of his usual pattern and won't remind you in the least of Lovejoy (McShane's most famous character, the genial art forger/detective). But the standout performance is, of course, Ben Kingsley. Kingsley is brilliant as the manic, menacing Logan: fulfills the standard cliché of performing "a role that will surprise you"-Don Logan is sort of role Michael Caine made an icon in 1960s movies like the original "Get Carter"-tough, brutal, smooth, sexy, manipulative, and more than a little bit of a maniac: a man you don't say "no" to if you want to survive. The whole movie, in fact, has the feel of a 1960s British crime drama like "Get Carter" with the modern sensibilities of directors of today like Guy Ritchie. The movie may be a little too much a crime-genre film to garner Academy Award nominations, but both Kingsley's and Winstone's performances are worthy of an Oscar nod as a driven hunter and his prey. Although once it gets to the heist itself, innovative as it is, the main drive of the film is lessened. Once Kingsley's off the screen, I began fidgeting, waiting for his return, and McShane's character matching wits with Gal is no substitute for vicious Don Logan. But that's the sole weak spot in an exceptionally powerful, dark-humored, violent but stylish movie that's not so much a heist caper as it is a sharp and penetrating look at the violence men visit on each other...and on themselves.
Rating: 
Summary: GANDHI GOES PSYCHOTIC
Review: Sure, it's fun seeing Ghandi go psycho, and the film has its dramatic and comedic moments. Nonetheless, this film manages to build little suspense or interest, and the film's climax had come and gone before I even knew it. Overall, this movie feels like a cut-rate Tarantino or Guy Ritchie film, lacking the narrative flair and complexity of their best films. Sexy Beast has nothing new to add to the British gangster genre except for Kingsley's memorable performance.
Rating:
Summary: Oscar Nominated Gangster Film with Great Perfomances
Review: Don't let the title mislead you, this is a tough and harrowing film for which Sir Ben Kingsley was nominated for an Oscar in the recent ceremonies. It is stylishly directed and executed and stands as one of the best gangster films made in recent years. The plot revolves around a bank heist and involves bringing the film's central character out of his comfortable retirement for one last job. Unfortunately when he refuses to risk his liberty and return to work with his old partners in crime tensions mount to murderous effect. As well as an excellent script and exciting cinematography what makes this film so special is the outstanding performance by Ray Winstone, Ben Kingsly and Ian McShane. These may be new names to many but they are outstanding actors capable of harrowing levels of intensity easily on a par with De Niro and Pesci. I recommend this film very highly; it is riveting viewing even after repeated exposures and Ben Kingsly's performance as "Don Logan" gives us one of the nastiest screen villains to emerge in recent years.
Rating:
Summary: VERY SEXY INDEED!
Review: I was loving this film all the way through, non-stop gangster style! I have always thought Ray Winstone was the 'Main Man' of cockney gangster films ( remember 'Love, honour and obey', 'Nil by mouth') and teamed up with Ben Kingsley you can't go wrong.
As a retired gangster living in the Costa da sol he's got it all beautiful wife ( Amanda Redman) beautiful house, beautiful weather, until one day his past catches up with him,Ben Kingsley as the blast from the past. I don't want to go on about the film as it worth watching it for yourself to see just how hard it is to say 'no'. The tension just explodes off the screen once Ben Kingsley is on the scene, and it has to be said that Kingsley is so convincing as Don that you actually start hating him from the moment his name is mentioned. So much so you want to kill the man yourself! Ian Mcshane has a small role, I have never really liked him but he pulls this one off quite well. You can't go wrong with this, top acting, top dialogue, top notch plot! The title doesn't do this much justice, but it is definately one of the best of the British, highly underated. Get your dose of cockney gangsters because I did, and was loving every minute of it. No wonder they're going crazy for it on release in the states, check it out, you'll be sorry you never Guv!
Rating:
Summary: flawless
Review: Complaints about this film reveal only a lack of sophistication. I don't mean to say that I understand this film completely--it's hard enough to understand the English--but if you bring your brain to your seat (and leave "Gandhi" at the door, or you'll spend the whole film thinking, "Why is Gandhi so mean, mama?"), this movie will have it fizzing for days afterward. Kingsley's Don Logan, from the moment he hits the screen amid thrashing punk bass fuzz, is a villain to match Anthony Hopkins's Hannibal Lecter for absolute terror--and he's twice the badass. The movie is worth seeing for Kingsley's mindblowingly intense performance. It is the most complete immersion of actor into character I have seen other than Malcolm MacDowell as Alex in "A Clockwork Orange." ... The man-rabbit, from whom Winstone's Gal Dove spends the whole movie trying to escape, is the sexy beast--the horrible promise of riches and fame and glory and heightened virility--all those things he knows will destroy him but are still irresistible. In the end, that beast, and Kingsley, the incarnation of the beast, are exiled--buried beneath Gal's pool. See? It just takes a few minutes of thought, and thought is much better spent on this movie than anything Spielberg has ever done. See this film. It's mind candy.
Rating:
Summary: Ben Kingsley's smokin'!
Review: Gorgeous Costa del Sol, a fantastic soundtrack, and great acting make this film a winner. Jonathan Glazer's direction is tight yet well-paced. Ray Winstone and Amanda Redman (as Gal and Dee-Dee) have great chemistry and a quiet heat about them. The real star, though, is Ben as Don Logan. You can't miss the seen with him and Gal on the beach, or on the airplane with the Spanish stewardess. He's white hot, sexy, and smokin'!
Rating:
Summary: Sexy? No. Funny? Yes. A must-see? Yes.
Review: There is a lot of laugh value in having Ben Kingsley--he's Gandhi, after all--play a vicious mobster. But what sustains this very interesting film is its brutal energy and intensity. The cast is superb down to the smallest part. The film concerns a retired mobster, Gal (Ray Winstone) who is dragged back into the game one more time by Don Logan (Kingsley), a mobster who is very much still in the game and who, similar to Don Corleone, makes Gal an offer that he can't refuse. The most interesting part of the movie is not the heist (although I enjoyed this part of the film), but the will-he, won't-he momentum leading up to it. Just how convincing is Don Logan? And does he win in all this? The answer to the first question is VERY effective--Kingsley is a profanity-spewing, intensely coiled monster. I won't answer the second--you'll just have to see it for yourself. This is a great, intense film (a first film, directed by a former music video director). It's loud, brash and occasionally brutal, but there are also moments of quiet tenderness between Gal and his wife, a former porn star (who is thus berated by Logan). It is, in short, a powerhouse of a film, well worth eight bucks. A couple of warnings--I had a very tough time understanding the Cockney dialect for the first ten minutes or so. The film is loaded with bad language and a little bit of nasty violence (although the worst of it occurs offscreen).
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