Each of us Is a SEXY BEAST (in a Way).

The British have a curious affection for gangsters, different from our interest in the Godfathers of Crime. They like the little guy, the "soldier," who gets away with it, like Ronnie Biggs of The Great Train Robbery fame.

On a cold, damp night in Glasgow, Belfast, Cardiff or London, the average "common five-eight" drinks a bitter and imagines living it up in the sunlight of Rio, on a Greek isle or in Santa Monica. Which may explain the increasing stream of British films over the years which celebrate small, tough, ambivalent gangster "heroes": BRIGHTON ROCK (John Boulton, 1947), NIGHT AND THE CITY (Dassin, 1950), THE LADY KILLERS (McKendrick, 1955), GET CARTER (Hodges, 1970), THE LONG GOOD FRIDAY (McKenzie, 1980), MONA LISA (Jordan, 1986); and more recently LOCK, STOCK AND TWO SMOKING BARRELS (Ritchie, 1998), THE LIMEY (Soderbergh, 1999), CROUPIER (Foster, 1999), and SNATCH (Ritchie, 2001)

Most of these "heroes" are poor lads, often Cockneys from the East End of London, who see that the hard work of their fathers and grandfathers, who came from Eastern Europe, the Mediterranean, Ireland or Scotland, have not earned many retirements in the South of France. They have grown up on the streets, been brutalized, given a code of Manhood even harsher than that held out by gangs in the United States. They are also often people who must suppress their emotions, never really grow up, live secret lives in the company of men like themselves.

Now arrives SEXY BEAST.

Gary "Gal" Dove (Ray Winstone) is lying beside the pool of his estate like a crocodile going to seed. Gal is an East Ender who, unlike his mates, grew up emotionally. He realized that there was something wrong with the brutal structure and pecking order of the criminal society in which he lived. A drill man in major safe cracking jobs, he saved his loot, married his main squeeze Dee-Dee (Amanda Redman) because he was able to feel love for her, and they invested in a middle-size hacienda on a hillside, above the Mediterranean, at Almeiria on Spain's southern coast. The couple have two friends, Aitch (Cavan Kendall) and Jackie (Juliane White), recent escapees themselves from London winters and the old life, and they all live comfortably indeed, but not on the scale of an American Don. Chops on the barbie and the occasional meal at a nice restaurant in town.

This is the life that old displaced dockers dream about.

As the film opens, Gal stirs the gold chain around his neck to affectionately harass his "house boy" Enrique (Avaro Monje) to finish his sweep of poolside, and to go get him a drink, before Dee-Dee returns to prepare for a visit from Aitch and Jackie. On the soundtrack, The Stranglers are singing "Peaches." As he waits in sweat-making heat, sleepily hoisting himself to his feet to get a smoke, a huge boulder rumbles down the hill behind him, takes a good hop over his head, and smashes the entwined hearts of travertine at the bottom of his pool.

Before long, as Aitch and Jackie reluctantly, fearfully inform Gal, another boulder is heading straight for him in the form of Don Logan (Ben Kinglsey). We see his bald head from behind as he marches anal-retentively along the Spanish airport concourse toward his mission. Logan, a partner and enforcer in the old life, is perhaps a psychopath, certainly a man full of barely controlled rage and hidden inferiority. He knows Gal, Dee-Dee, Aitch and Jackie well, in some cases too well. His brutal manners and ignorance mark him as a man who has been terribly hurt and suffers arrested emotional development. It soon becomes apparent that he is a control freak who must conceal what in my youth was called "latent homosexuality."

Don has come to bring Gal back for one more job, for old time's sake, and he won't take no for an answer. He tells Gal how their old leader, Teddy Bass (Ian McShane), met Harry (James Fox), the manager of a high security safety deposit box facility, at a "f--cking incredible orgy." After engaging in a little of the in-and-out together, Teddy received an invitation from Harry to make a deposit. Teddy has an idea how to rob the facility. It will require a first rate, reliable bloke with command of a pneumatic drill. Teddy immediately thought of his old soldier, Gal. Don has been sent to bring him home.

Gal, Aitch and Jackie kowtow to Logan's needs, in hopes of appeasing him. Only Dee-Dee will take no b.s., and we can only guess what gives her courage to express the contempt the others are too afraid to express. To protect his wife, Gal tries to reason with Don. He is out of shape, overweight, too old for a caper. But Don becomes increasingly nasty and violent, first verbally, sharing what he knows about the women to break up the relationships, and then physically, which has ironic results.

That is the question on which the plot turns: Will Don coerce Gal to risk what he has gathered for fear of, and loyalty to, the mob?

The more interesting question, in Director Jonathan Glazer's hands, is: What motivates all these people? The answer seems to be that they are all, in one way other, sexy beasts, howling within themselves.

Aside from Gal, and to a lesser extent the craven Aitch, the men in the movie attempt to control each other, boost their egos by denigrating women, refer to each other by derogatory sexual expressions. It is their interlocking relationships, both homoerotic and homopathic in nature, which makes this movie continually interesting, surprising and often revealing.

SEXY BEAST is about power.

The climax, when it comes bloodily, illustrates the above thesis.

First feature Director Glazer (from Guinness commercials) and tyro photographer Ivan Bird show a control that Don Logan (or John Huston or Jules Dassin) would admire. They do it mainly by the old-fashioned book, in high contrast against white walls, blue skies and the sea, with lots of pull focus shots, but laced with well-handled flashbacks of memory, and nightmare bits of goat-footed demonic nemeses.

The music choices by Rouque Banos are apt, from rock solid, to tetinitis, to the rather lyrical, depending on the stage of the story.

Ray Winstone, so good in Anjelica Huston's AGNES BROWN last year, is perfect for the lumbering, gradually sympathetic Gal who became a real man. Kingsley, an actor with a spotty career since he won an Oscar as Gandhi in his second film, does his best work here in years. In his bearing, his eyes, the tightness of his mouth, we know that here is a bomb close to detonation. True, Glazer may overdo Don Logan's repetitive verbal attacks, but it is an effective and believable portrayal.

This is a significant debut film for Jonathan Glazer. At a concise 91 minutes, you will not be bored.

[In the screening I attended, women seemed to understand the film best. But I thought interesting that an IMDb poll showed the group who admires SEXY BEAST the most are males under the age of 18. They give it a 10. The film must be saying something to them, too.]