Having Jonathan Glazer back at the Cannes Film Festival with a new film is always positive, regardless of how much a fan one may be of his particular films. Films like ‘Under the Skin’ are a challenge and a representation of a very Martian and different sensibility in current cinema. One that lavishes little, but that does so with tapes that try to look little like what you expect from them.
always gives a special approach to the genres you choose to addressbe it sci-fi or disturbing psychological drama, so we can expect anything from his exploration of the concentration camps in ‘The Zone Of Interest‘. While we wait to see the result, we can rescue his approach to gangster cinema in ‘Sexy Beast‘.
a charred world
His first feature film is kind of film that is most accessible in an often incorrigible author and daring in his way of making movies. Available to watch on different streaming platforms such as Acontra+, Filmin or MUBI, this British production with a stop in Spain was quite a surprise at the time and an interesting variation of a genre that we have more or less controlled.
In it we find a very burned Ray Winstone on the Costa del Sol while the title is revealed with a priceless sense of humor that sets the tone. This red-faced man is a retired gangster whose placidity is suddenly disturbed by the arrival of a former sidekick who he is going to enlist it yes or yes in one last great blow.
The sarcastic and even parodic touch of this kind of crime thriller, turning upside down the most exaggerated parts of the kind of film that Guy Ritchie delivers, is a welcome touch that spice up the experience. A proposal that, on the other hand, is supported less by plot and more by a combination of characters and script, despite the fact that Glazer has an overwhelming visual personality from his past directing video clips and advertising.
‘Sexy Beast’: overwhelming personality
It’s also, of course, held up by its overwhelming number of sweeping British character actors. Of that lineage that by themselves enhance a movie with its intense sauce. Here we have a wonderful triangle with the aforementioned Winstone and with Ian McShane and a Ben Kingsley who had a surprising Oscar nomination as a secondary for his bulldog-spirited criminal.
Scenes like the one in which Kingsley himself stars on a plane, lighting a cigarette knowing the prohibition, shows a wild character that the film You do well not to take yourself too seriously.. Little flashes of daring set ‘Sexy Beast’ apart from other crime movies, and it sees Glazer making promises that he’s going to go back on in some very unique ways.
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