angelophile | Movies to see before you die: Sexy Beast

From its opening monologue, with Ray Winsrone lying by the pool in his villa in spain, oiled, sweating, lobster red and clad in a yellow speedo, it should be obvious this isn't going to be your average British crime thriller. Winstone, as overweight, near cuddly, retired con "Gel" provides the heart of the film, blending together the different elements – is the movie a romance? A caper movie? A gangster thriller? A comedy? Well, the answer is all of the above and more. It's a movie that resonates – unfairly overlooked at the box office during a spate of unmemorable gangster movies, it tells the story of four friends with skeletons in their closets, whose quiet and idyllic reirement in Spain is shattered when Del is asked to perform one last job.

It sounds like a clichéd plot and, in some ways it is. What sets Sexy Beast apart is the performances and the script. On the DVD, both Winstone and Ben Kingsley, the movie's other big player, both describe the script as being poetry. In some ways it is. The language of Don Logan, the villain of the piece, has a rhythm all of its own, a pithy patter that punches home with its sudden changes of direction and bullet-fast expletives.

Then come the performances.

Winstone delivers one of the defining performances of his career. Well known for playing the hard man, his performance here is softer, more bear like. Gel's a big man, in heart and body. He truly loves his wife and is desperate to hold onto his life,. It's a portrait of a man who you could believe had a shady past, yet is sympathetic and vulnerable as his life is turned upside down by the arrival of Don Logan, a psychopath who demands that Gel "do the job."

In the role of Don, Kingsley is a revelation and was justly Oscar nominated. A role more different rom Ghandi you couldn't think of – Kingsley describes Don as being like a "tomohawk missile" and it's an appropriate simile. He tears into this role with a gusto, delivering a performance that's both magnetic and genuinely chilling. Don's a mad pit bull, full of paranoia, pride, psychosis and a machismo so acute he literally marks his territory. It's a revelation from Kingsley who manages to seem physically more imposing than the larger Gel just through the force of his performance and the subtlety of Winstone's.

The other roles aren't to be sniffed at either - Amanda Redman as Dee Dee, Gel's wife manages to have enough chemistry with Winstone that you believe in their loving relationship, while Ian McShane crops up as crime boss Teddy Bass in his pre-Deadwood days and oozes slime and villainy.

All this and nightmarish visions of a terrifying rabbit-man that put Donnie Darko to shame and the superlative opening sequence involving Winstone in a speedo, a bolder and a pool and you have a cracking blend of tension, comedy and romance that compels you to keep watching.