This is topic Sexy Beast in forum Film Handlers' Movie Reviews at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.
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Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 04-27-2002, 11:16 PM:
04/27/2002, 7:00PM, My Living Room, Sony 53" 4:3 HDTV-capable RPTV, Sony DirecTV satellite receiver using MPEG compression, S-video connection between receiver and display, nominal 330-line NTSC video resolution. Dolby Pro-Logic Surround. Scope image thoughtfully cropped to 1.33 by DirecTV, so none of those annoying black bars (actually the pan-and-scan didn't look all that bad), and DirecTV allocates enough bandwidth to pay-per-view movies to make them look pretty good. Running time only 1 hour 29 mins.DirecTV has this classified as a Comedy. ??!! This was a serious, intense film. Ben Kingsley definitely earned his Oscar nomination. Story is about a middle-aged English crook who "retires" to a villa in Spain with his beautiful wife and another couple. One day an old associate, Ben Kingsley, shows up at his door and wants him to do a job. Both couples obviously are deathly afraid of Kingsley, for reasons which quickly become apparent. Kingsley will not take "no" for an answer (kind of like 1-800-555-TELL) and things spiral from there in strange directions. The movie really is riveting. Glad I saw it at home and not at the local art house because the English accents are so thick I had trouble understanding the dialog sometimes; would have been impossible in a theater with less than good sound. Not a conventional heist movie. If you haven't seen this, it's worth checking out for its unique approach to what seems like a familar plot.
Tons-o-profanity and violence, some nudity. Might want to put the kids to bed before you watch it.
Posted by Don Anderson (Member # 397) on 04-28-2002, 01:35 AM:
Kewl... I've had the video screener sitting around for a while. Judging from the title I figured it would be stupid, but now I have a reason to watch it! Thanks for the mini review.
Posted by James R. Hammonds, Jr (Member # 673) on 04-28-2002, 03:35 AM:
Just for clarification, Sexy Beast was scope 
Posted by David Stambaugh (Member # 1102) on 04-28-2002, 10:43 AM:
James, thanks for the correction! The opening credits looked to be in about 1.85:1 so I assumed flat. This might be Super-35 cause in 1.33 it didn't really look all that cropped. Anyway I fixed that in my original post.