For those of you who like heist movies, I highly recommend Sexy Beast. It generally follows the formula of most heist movies found in the classics of the genre, such as Rififi. But what makes Sexy Beast so original is that it focuses on the recruitment of one of the conspirators and not on the planning and execution of the heist itself.
Ben Kingsley (who puts on quite a show playing psychotic criminal Don Logan) is trying to recruit “Gal”, played by Ray Winston, to join a crew planning on a busting into a London bank vault. But Gal has retired to Spain with his wife and has no interest in resuming his criminal career.
That’s where the fun starts as Don Logan is a particularly brutal man who does not take no for an answer. So what ensues is a tense battle of wills that steadily builds to a boiling point.
I don’t want to give anything away, but the viewer does eventually get to see the how the heist goes down. The heist scene, like the rest of the movie, is well done. But what makes this movie a unique addition to the heist genre is what goes down in Spain.