TRASHFUTURE - *PREVIEW* Britainology 83: Sexy Beast (2000)

Episode Date: May 26, 2024

For this month's first Britainology, we examine an unambiguously good (and strange) British crime film: Jonathan Glazer's 2000 debut SEXY BEAST. Why is the film so atmospheric and detached? Why is Ben Kingsley so good at being an ultra-geezer? Is the plot saying definitively that Ian McShane had to let James Fox top him in order to learn about a bank vault? All this, and more. Get the whole episode on Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/posts/britainology-83-104846435 EDINBURGH LIVE SHOW ALERT: We're going to be live at Monkey Barrel comedy at the Edinburgh Fringe on August 14, and you can get tickets here: https://www.wegottickets.com/event/621432 *STREAM ALERT* Check out our Twitch stream, which airs 9-11 pm UK time every Monday and Thursday, at the following link: https://www.twitch.tv/trashfuturepodcast *WEB DESIGN ALERT* Tom Allen is a friend of the show (and the designer behind our website). If you need web design help, reach out to him here:  https://www.tomallen.media/ Trashfuture are: Riley (@raaleh), Milo (@Milo_Edwards), Hussein (@HKesvani), Nate (@inthesedeserts), and November (@postoctobrist)

a perfect portrayal of like the average British guy abroad, especially in Spain. And then also it's kind of tapping into this mythology of British criminals who kind of went on the run in Spain. And it was a very popular location to, you know, I mean, there was a, we used to go to Spain a lot when I was a kid. We used to go to this village called Mijas and there was a restaurant kind of on the hill outside the village, like on the way up called the Valparaiso. And it was notoriously just like British gangsters would hang out there.

It was like the gaudiest place, like bright white umbrellas that were up at night and kind of fairy lights all through these palm trees and stuff. And supposedly the craze used to go there or something. But yeah, I think there's particularly like the southern coast of Spain, there's this real, yeah, ex-British gangster mythology and people who sort of, I don't know, maybe aspire to that a bit. And so this film definitely is, it's referencing something that you're aware of. Understood. Yeah. I've also heard the same about Cyprus. That Cyprus is also, especially in the period of EU membership and free movement, that Cyprus

was a place where lots of British gangsters went to go sort of hide out at slash retire. But in this case, I'm aware of the phenomenon of Brits in Spain. I've only been to Spain once as a small child. I don't have any recollection of meeting Brits. But one time when I was coming back from East Asia, my flight to New York stopped in Seattle. And I had a long enough layover to see some friends and then come back to the airport the next day. And so I, at the Seattle airport, waiting for my flight to New York, it's a long haul

flight technically speaking. So it's in the same terminal as a lot of international flights. My gate was right next to the gate for a flight to London. There was a guy sleeping on the bench seating, if I remember correctly. Now, I don't know if he was British, but I'd never encountered the kind of Baz stereotype before. I'd never seen that kind of like bald middle-aged guy. This man was so sunburned, he looked purple.

He looked like a- From Seattle as well. Well, Pacific Northwest is bright as fuck. If it's in the summertime and it was, you can very easily get sun. I mean, there's so much. It's so, so amazing when the weather is nice there. But it's only slightly south of the latitude. Like Vancouver and London are close in latitude. And so if you're out in the sun having a good old time in the Pacific Northwest and you're not wearing sunscreen at all, like you will get annihilated in this guy had. And so I mean, Ray Winstone looks fashionably tanned compared to how like hit by gamma rays

this British dude looked. We do love getting burned. The burned top of the bald head is always a classic as well with the British holiday maker. There was no coverage or blockage, man. Every bit of skin this man was exposing and he was wearing from a mercred like jeans and a t-shirt was just burned. But yeah, I think about that sometimes, you know, Brits in the sun, they love it and yet

they can't handle it. And so in this case, we get these kinds of like sort of, well, this first sort of weird bucolic scene and the dinner scene. And then the next time they go to have dinner in a restaurant they like, and clearly something is wrong with H and Jackie. And Gal's first reaction is to kind of as they're sitting at the table, tell H whatever it is that happened, just leave it. Like don't, don't ruin the night. but it's so obvious something bad has happened and basically the word gets out. They received a phone call from London and it comes out you know sort of bits and starts

that finally they got a call from a guy named Don Logan who wants to talk to Gal about a job in London and it's very clear that this guy, whoever they're talking about, it's awful. He's awful. Everyone is, it's like a death in the family has taken place. Everyone is just beside themselves like, fuck, oh no, this guy. And it's also interesting because for a second here, I was confused about who was whose wife because you kept seeing both couples together and Jackie seemed so viscerally upset by the idea that this guy wanted Gary to go to London and do a job and he's like, but I'm retired. He was like talking to her as

though she was his wife and that would make sense with like how upset she appeared to be. I was like, I was so confused and then later on they kind of disentangled this a bit why Jackie would be so upset about this particular news. This guy's showing up. So we may be emitting a little bit, but we then see a scene of what I might describe as like sinewy drum tight Ben Kingsley stomping through the airport, just fucking marching through the airport, holding his suit coat in a short sleeve shirt tucked into slacks with leather shoes.

The short sleeve white shirt. What a vibe. The kind of shirt that your maths teacher at school wore. An absolutely brutal garment. And also just Ben Kingsley fucking chewing the scenery in this movie. Just like, because the thing about Ben Kingsley is, so like Ray Winston is like, he is a born geezer. This is the role that Ray Winston is meant to play. It's the role that Ray Winston has always played. But then Ben Kingsley, who's obviously a great actor, but is not like a natural geezer. Or so you thought. Yeah. natural geezer. Or so you thought. Yeah, yeah. But there are points actually when Ben Kingsley's kind of like East London geezer accent kind

of falters and he slips into his kind of like more natural like well spoken kind of, there's a bit where he goes, no, no, no, no, no, and he starts going like no, no, no, no, no. But it was hard to catch it. But like the overall portrayal of the character and the way he gets across like the insanity of this guy is great. So effectively he has made Jackie and H pick him up at the airport and take him to Gal's house to have a talk. And what we understand is that a guy, basically someone he's worked for before

back in London named Teddy, got clued into some sort of thing for a safe deposit box that they want to stick up and a mechanism by which to do this. And they want him basically on Friday to check into a hotel in London, and then he'll get a call, and then this is which to do this. And they want him basically on Friday to check into a hotel in London, and then he'll get a call, and then this is going to happen. He's supposed to be part of this crew to do it.

This is a great scene actually, because we get- No, this is interesting, because I wanna take, the way that the plan is discussed, I find really interesting and well done. And I think about like, there's a level, there's a kind of like smash cut back and forth between different people narrating and I think about how I have seen things like this done in Guy Ritchie films for example and I think it is so much more effective and so much more in that

regard like I don't know like stylish if you want to call it that like it kind of communicates the mood without being ridiculous I feel like Guy Ritchie, when they do it, it's too frenetic and too clever by half. Yeah. Whereas in this case, it's just interesting. It's sort of like, it's like reported speech in a way. It's like he's saying what the guy is saying to him, but you get the conversation both from when,

when Dawn and Kingsley's character is sitting in his Y-fronts getting a phone call, getting this information. And then also when he's getting the sort of person who was telling him was getting information from Teddy and you hear about Teddy getting invited to like this big posh orgy cocaine party where he meets someone who tells him about the safe deposit box thing. And so a couple of interesting details in here. It's very interesting to see a film portray an orgy in a way that just doesn't look fun

at all. Yeah, it really doesn't look fun. Although, you know, posh people. And also here's a detail where I really want your opinion on something. Because there's a way that, so here's a very crucial detail for later in the plot. And I'm not saying, I don't think I missed it, I don't think I misunderstood it,

but I wanted your opinion to see, because it is ambiguous. So at the orgy, whilst recovering in, you know, post orgasmic bliss or on coke or whatever the fuck, Teddy, played by Ian McShane, is lying on a sofa and gets introduced to a guy named Harry, who's a banker. He's at this orgy also. He's the person who's going to clue him in about the... And you get the sense that Teddy is a bit odd one out of the orgy because he's like,

he has this kind of like, he's a gangster affect and like everyone else there is very posh. This incredibly tightly wound, very intense. Ian McShane's eyes also, I think, really play a role here in the sense that he's got really bright blue eyes and he's just fucking staring people down. You get a lot of shots of his face staring threateningly. So basically, a guy, he more or less does the sort of geezer back and forth with a guy and says, what are you staring at? The guy's like, I'm staring at the back of your head.

He says, well, fucking stop it then. Stare at the back of your own fucking head, he says, which is great. And then he turns around and looks at the guy and he says, men or women. And Harry, the banker says, absolutely. Now here's the next scene. It kind of- I loved this guy. It was so funny.

The smash cut to him, to Teddy in water or in a shower, kind of, it looks like he's having sex but it's not really made clear who he's having sex with or if he's having sex with Harry if he's topping or bottoming. My read on the situation is that he's bottoming and hates it, but that would imply that the possibility of this connection from this person is such that he is willing to have sex with him in a way that makes him uncomfortable because of the opportunity this presents for some sort of future thing, heist, et cetera.