trailer tuesday

this week's entry is for jonathan glazer's sexy beast (2000).

it's possibly the only entry in the spate of british gangster films that came out in the late 90s/early 00s that has nothing to be ashamed of. ray winstone is superb and ben kingsley is flat-out terrifying. someone finally capitalized on my favorite character trait of his that went so long underused - his menace. you can see it bubble up here and there throughout the years, my favorite example being in the film adaptation of harold pinter's betrayal (1983), but here it's not reined in. it isn't lurking beneath the stiff upper lip and veneer of english, middle class propriety. here it is boiling over. he is quite out of his mind. if you are going to trifle with him you had best be prepared to go farther than him. and he is prepared to go all the way to the end. "no" is not a word he is interested in, unless the question is "would you like to go see a guy ritchie film?".

p.s. if anyone out there can facilitate betrayal getting a dvd release, i would be forever in your debt.