Life's a gas for retired British gangster Gary "Gal" Dove, the putative hero of Sexy Beast. By day, Gal (played by an unusually relaxed--for awhile, at least--Ray Winstone) roasts poolside under a big white Spanish sun, goofing around with the kid who does his chores. By night, he cooks steaks and sausages for his adored wife and their pals, grilling with such brio that he nearly singes himself. He lights up and blows heart-shaped smoke rings at the missus, and after climbing into bed, he imagines that the two of them are floating intertwined under the night sky, evoking Andrei Tarkovsky's dreamlike Solaris.

Every now and then, a mishap occurs--like the boulder that barrels down a hill and grazes the ends of Gal's ridiculously frosted hair before making a big splash in his pool. Bad luck, that. But it could have been worse. Living the good life, Gal seems pretty much unfazeable.

That is, until word comes his way that an old compatriot, Don Logan, is flying in from London to enlist Gal for a job. Now that fazes him. On hearing the news before dinner, Gal breathes deeply, takes in his surroundings, and sighs, "I love this restaurant," in a tone better suited to the words "my life is over."

When Don shows up soon after, you understand why. Ben Kingsley, paler than Willem Dafoe in Shadow of the Vampire, skinny as a swizzle stick, standing stock straight, shaved head glinting obscenely, is just (not to be indelicate or anything) a gigantic phallus. An implacable amalgam of menace, vulgarity, bullheadedness, and lunacy, Kingsley's Don often pronounces whole sentences as one word; hence, his first line of dialogue is "Gottachainjmyshirtitstickintomeaymsweatinlaikacunt." This is Kingsley's best performance in years, maybe his best ever.

Sexy Beast is a deft, remarkably tight (it's not even 90 minutes long) British gangster thriller that honors the classics of the genre while still situating itself firmly in the new-style territory staked out by such directors as Guy Ritchie and Danny Boyle. (A little too firmly at times--I swear this is the second British movie I've seen in six months whose sound track contains songs by both the Stranglers and Dean Martin.) Director Jonathan Glazer (working from a script by Louis Mellis and David Scinto) has a background in British commercials and a fondness for the eccentric stylistic flourish (e.g., that heart-shaped smoke ring). But he also has a strong--make that ruthless--sense of narrative momentum. So much so that you could get whiplash from watching this picture.

Reviewed by Glenn Kenny. Check out www.premiere.com