I don’t know how they do it. I really don’t. How do you take a stylistically unique, psychologically intense, stone-classic thriller from the past 40-odd years of English-language cinema and make a really good show out of it — not just once, but enough times that trend pieces can be written? What alchemy is this?
Take Noah Hawley’s Fargo. The project seemed basically nuts, until he produced five seasons of clever, haunting, nail-biting television based on Coenesque crimes in the Midwest. 2023, the year Fargo’s fifth season proved the concept still has gas in the tank, also saw the release of Alice Birch & Rachel Weisz’s astonishing reimagining of Dead Ringers, as well as Alexandra Cunningham & Kevin J. Hynes’s whip-smart, but sadly short-lived, Fatal Attraction. If you’d told me people could convincingly riff and expand on the work of stylists like Joel and Ethan Coen, David Cronenberg, and Adrian Lyne, I wouldn’t have believed you. But seeing, as they say, is believing.
Now, they can’t all be winners. For every Hannibal there is a Clarice, for every Dead Ringers and Fatal Attraction an American Gigolo or Obsession (a moribund Netflix re-adaptation of the Jeremy Irons erotic thriller Damage). They’re not gonna get it right every time. But boy oh boy, they got it right with Sexy Beast.
Inspired by the 2000 British gangster masterpiece by director Jonathan Glazer (Birth, Under the Skin, The Zone of Interest, generally being the best English-language director of his generation) and based on its screenplay by Louis Mellis and David Scinto, Sexy Beast is a prequel to that climactic confrontation between retired thief Gal Dove, his explosive old associate Don Logan, and their quietly lethal old boss Teddy Bass. Those three characters — played in the film by living legends Ray Winstone, Ben Kingsley, and Ian McShane respectively — are depicted here just eight or so years earlier judging from the soundtrack. The roles of Gal, Don, and Teddy go to actors James McArdle (the snitch from Andor, the deacon from Mare of Easttown), Emun Elliot (the troubador who gets his tongue cut out by Joffrey in Game of Thrones), and Stephen Moyer (freaking Bill from True Blood) respectively.
And they do it damn well, that’s the thing. Same with Sarah Greene as Gal’s future love interest Deedee (portrayed by Amanda Redman in the film), a porn star who makes her studio all its money but has no creative control. Same with John Dagleish (The Third Day, which you should watch) as Aitch, Gal’s somewhat older friend, who joins him in retirement in Spain prior to the events of the film. Same with Paul Kaye (Game of Thrones’ Thoros of Myr, only vaguely recognizable) as Stan, Teddy’s older right-hand man and liaison to the wider world of the London criminal underground. If you care about the movie, and you care about the TV show getting all those characters right, prepare to be rewarded for your interest and enthusiasm.
But let’s say you’re unfamiliar with the movie, coming to this cold. Good news! You’ve got a perfectly engaging, crisply filmed, richly acted, sonically propulsive journey back to the good old days of stylish 1990s UK. The erotic and romantic heart of the episode is a woman dancing in a clear homage to Velvet Goldmine while George Michael’s “Too Funky” plays on the soundtrack, for crying out loud. It’s a time and a place, in other words, and an extremely inviting one, provided you’re not too concerned about what the Tories and New Labour are up to in the background.
The plot concerns two fateful meetings for our hero, the handsome and good-natured thief Gal Dove. In short order, he encounters Deedee, the love of his life, who will lead him away from his beautiful but conventional fiancée Marjorie (Eliza Bennett); and Teddy, “the Prince of fucking Darkness,” a black-clad, sexually fluid gangster on the come-up.
Teddy, whose identity is shrouded in mystery among London’s criminals like he’s the Joker or something, has it in for one Sir Stephen Eaton (Julian Rhind-Tutt), a posh politician whose corruption has enriched him while impoverishing the public. Bass targets the toff on behalf of his expat benefactor Roger Riley (Ralph Brown), who was squeezed out of the scene when his gangland successors Dominic and Freddie McGraw (Peter Ferdinando and Nicholas Nunn) brought in Eaton and his bureaucrats. Teddy’s task is to bleed the guy dry; it falls to Gal and Don, leaders of the best smash-and-grab team in London, to draw first blood.
The plan — an armored-car heist in search of a single rare coin — goes according to plan, until one of Gal and Don’s hothead associates fires a shot at a witness, who flees. Teddy and Stan, who seem to know all and see all, demand that Gal “take care of the problem,” nudge nudge wink wink say no more. The problem is that Gal, whom even Stan recognizes as the kind of bloke basically everyone wants to sit down and have a couple pints with, is no murderer. The further problem is that Don is, or at least wants to be, at the encouragement of his casino-boss sister and employer Cecilia (Tasmin Grieg). Cecilia is significantly tougher and scarier than Don is, though substantially more stable. (Don is not as nuts here as he is in the movie, not yet anyway — he couldn’t be, if the show wants to convince us that he and Gal once were happy partners in crime — but he’s getting there.)
So Don and Gal both draw on the security guard, and then each other — Gal hoping to let the man flee, Don insisting that they do the job that both Teddy and Cecilia have tasked them with doing. In the standoff that follows, the bystander gets away. Don and Gal decide to act as though the deed has been done, and try to enjoy themselves at the subsequent knees-up with Teddy and their crew.
But Teddy still has his concerns, which he expresses by shooting the loose cannon guy in the fucking head right there at the table. Gal assures Teddy, deceitfully, that the witness is dead, and as far as Teddy’s concerned the party can truly begin. Cut to black.
If nothing else, and I think it’s something else indeed, Sexy Beast is a good crime show, and criminal hijinks are what will grab viewers here — the heists are literally explosive, the different dangers presented by the cold-blooded Teddy and the hot-blooded Don immediately recognizable. But it’s the romance that seals the deal. When Gal sees Deedee dancing at a nightclub, it’s lust at first sight for sure, but it really, really is love at first sight as well. The blissed-out smile on Gal’s face as he flirts with this woman is all the proof you need that he’s not just horny, he’s smitten. And you should hear him talk to Aitch about his first night with Deedee, spent not kissing or fucking but simply talking, about anything and everything.
Creator-showrunner-writer-director Michael Caleo sums it all up neatly when he pushes Deedee’s revelation that she makes porn for a living offscreen, taking it as read when we rejoin their conversation. There’s no need to show it, because it quickly becomes apparent that Gal would have reacted no differently if she’d said she were a veterinarian or an art professor. He’s impressed by her accomplishments. He admires her ambition. He intuitively recognizes her talent, intelligence, and creative vision. He seriously might as well be talking to a graphic designer. In other words, he’s not shaming her or making her feel like an exotic zoo animal, he’s just talking to an accomplished and interesting person. “Where the fuck did you come from?” is all the astonished Deedee can manage in reply to their first real conversation.
Seriously though, you get where she’s coming from. McArdle’s gentle performance, taking tons of cues from Winstone’s, suggests nothing but benevolence and genuine interest in Deedee’s life and professional fortunes. (He encourages her to throw her weight around since she’s the name on the box, not realizing that the McGraws are calling the shots at her studio.)
For her part, Deedee doesn’t bat an eyelash when Gal tells her, with uncharacteristic honesty, that he steals for a living. In an incredible series of cuts, the show whisks the couple from the patio outside, to the inside of the party, to his car, to her house, the conversation flowing seamlessly. It’s a thrillingly smart way to depict the gravitational pull of love at first sight; it’s as good at romance as Monarch: Legacy of Monsters was, which I assure you is not nearly as silly as it sounds.
I should mention, too, how neatly the new characters fit into the equation — how easy it is to believe that lovable Gal Dove should still head home for family dinners every Sunday with his working-class parents, loving mum Maddie (Cally Lawrence) and gambling-addict dad Bert (David Kennedy) and ever so slightly drug-addicted raver kid sister Ann Marie (Clea Martin). Tasmin Grieg’s Cecilia Logan in particular is a revelation; the Don Logan we remember from the film is easy to imagine growing up under her foul-mouthed thumb.
In some ways, Sexy Beast is a RETVRN kind of show If you miss the smart, stylish, ruthless British and Scottish crime thrillers of the Britpop decade. But if you’re new to the scene, congrats, you have readymade characters formed from pure gold getting tossed at your feet, with an unbeatable soundtrack and real filmmaking flair. I never thought it’d be possible to make a good show out of something as singular as Sexy Beast. But where there’s a will — and there is a fucking will — there’s a way — and there is a fucking way. There’s always a fucking way. (Hey, the episode didn’t shy away from cribbing dialogue from the original. Why should I?)
Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.
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