A Few Things That Don't Make Sense. - Sexy Beast (2001) Discussion

[–] mat_lev79 16 years ago

Okay, am I right in thinking that they breached a new high-tech security vault by simply digging a hole through the wall and they never set off any alarms? That's not much of a high-security system.

But even worse, they dug the tunnel while the spa pool was still filled with water. Why the heck didn't they drain the pool first? That would have saved a lot of work and expense (renting scuba gear) to remove the water first. I'll bet those sacks of water-logged money were a lot heavier than dry money.

I think that the water that filled the vault after they had got through, is what disabled the alarm - which answers two of your questions.

As for the third question, i believe Gal was an expert safe cracker, but more importantly a criminal with good reputation on previous jobs.

Never complain, never explain!

reply

[–] bing-57 16 years ago

> I think that the water that filled the vault after they had got through, is what disabled the alarm

Perhaps so. If that's true, however, that is a very bad alarm system if it can be disabled by pouring water on it.

Most systems that I've heard of will go off if there is any disturbance in the electrical system, including loss of power, which is what short circuiting it with water would do.

I think the water was just to make the movie a little bit unusual. I mean how often do you see middle aged gangsters in bathing suits rob a bank?

--
What Would Jesus Do For A Klondike Bar (WWJDFAKB)?

reply

[–] LTUM 9 years ago

my impression was that the pool was arbitrary and only served as a 'flaw' in the banks security design meaning that they neglected that one wall due to their assumption there was no need for anything on it since the pool was on the other side.

drain the pool?

i think they left the water in the pool to conceal the very loud sounds from the jackhammers. had they drained the water the sounds would have emanated throughout the neighborhood. the water was a perfect bonus mechanism to muffle the sound.

--------------
Life is not a problem to be solved, it's a mystery to be lived... so live it!

reply

[–] ben-1047 14 years ago

I think you're right that the water amount (500 gallons?) somehow played against the high tech security alarm.

As for Gal, I truly believe he had no particular skills useful to this job. The only reason he was there simply was because Don was still in love with Jackie.

reply

[–] mimosveta 16 years ago

I thought the water was there to silence the drilling in the middle of night.
They did plan the operation for 5 months, they found a way to bypass the alarm system. Sure it's not explained, but you could hardly suggest that's what the film was about.
As for Gal's skills, I think they are irrelevant. Don picked him so he could go and see Jackie.

---------
http://www.flixster.com/user/dobraribanasuvom

reply

[–] bing-57 16 years ago

> I thought the water was there to silence the drilling in the middle of night.

Okay. Now there's the first plausable reason I've heard for drilling underwater. Bravo!

Still, I'm not completely sure I'd go for that since there really didn't seem like there was anyone around to hear drilling noises, being that the bank was closed for the weekend and the crooks had bought or rented the entire spa. And I'm sure that flooding the vault would have set off the alarms or looked suspicious with lots of water leaking out.

> They did plan the operation for 5 months, they found a way to bypass the alarm system. Sure it's not explained, but you could hardly suggest that's what the film was about.

Apparently so. But still, the robbery was the whole reason that all the other scenes existed. It seems to me important that the central core of the movie make a little bit of sense.

And since the banker made such a big deal about how this was the ultimately secure vault, it would only be fair to the viewer to at least casually address how the crooks bypassed the most secure system in the world.

Otherwise that'd be like explorers finding King Kong on an island and then in the next scene King Kong is destroying New York. I'd feel a little jipped.

> As for Gal's skills, I think they are irrelevant. Don picked him so he could go and see Jackie.

I understand that. But it would seem to me that a big bad mobster would want a slightly better reason to spend so much time and effort and money recruiting Gal simply so that he could operate a jackhammer in a pool. AS you pointed out, they spent 5 months making sure everything was perfect.

--
What Would Jesus Do For A Klondike Bar (WWJDFAKB)?

reply

[–] Kev-Stenning 16 years ago

Jees some people are so picky, do you do this with all movies you watch? maybe you would be happier to watch documentaries? I hope you don't watch too many American shoot em up's you could be there for weeks asking questions, like hmm how many bullets were in that gun, do people really die instantly form a shot in the stomach etc. etc. etc. it is fantasy after all!

reply

[–] bing-57 16 years ago

Yeah, I do that with all movies that I watch. I do insist on watching things that make sense. Unlike you I will not settle for whatever drek the screen writers throw in front of me.

It is not that hard to write a movie where the characters obey the laws of physics and don't act like clueless morons all the time. I find plenty of them that do.

Only about ten percent of movies that I watch seem to have had someone double-checking the writers and saying, "Now that just doesn't make sense. Try again."

Ninety percent of the writers apparently don't care for logic or facts. Unfortunately they can get away with it because the audience is made up mostly of people who clap and giggle happily whenever something explodes.

I am happy for you that you don't care whether the good guy shoots a hundred bullets from his revolver or that bad guys instantly die from superficial wounds. Hollywood wishes they could have people like you fill all of their seats.

--
What Would Jesus Do For A Klondike Bar (WWJDFAKB)?

reply

[–] Brain_Loop 16 years ago

I tend to agree with mat_lev79 that the water disabled the alarm - when they got through there is a quick scene where the robbers are getting out of the pool (I think Gal is the last to get out) just in time before the electrics fuse and the lights go out.

Bing_57 lol at that comment, how true, never seen anything like it (middle aged men in swimming trunks operating heavy machinery underwater).

reply

[–] thecure-1 14 years ago

I totally agree!!!
I dont like when the viewer has to fix the story OR we end up saying "whatever" in the explanation of what happened.

reply

[–] tm_brown91 14 years ago

it's just not essential to the film. you're wrong about the core of the film being the bank robbery. the core of the film was the events that unfolded while don logan was in spain. the bank robbery is secondary. There just needed to be some sort of alternate reason for coming to spain other than seeing jackie that don could use so he could come to spain to see jackie. it could have been anything, not necessarily a vault heist

reply

[–] 14 years ago

[deleted]

[–] allthewine 13 years ago

This is coming from the guy who watches Twilight ffs, lol.

reply

[–] bing-57 13 years ago

Eh. I don't like Twilight, I just watch it so when other people talk about it I know what the heck is going on.

--
What Would Jesus Do For A Klondike Bar (WWJDFAKB)?

reply

[–] JaqnHghar 16 years ago

bing-57 I am certain the filmmakers could have went into every excruciating detail to explain every single event in the film if they had wished. But they chose not to, they chose instead to grant the viewer with some intelligence.
Oviously the gang found some way of disabling the alarm and they drilled underwater to keep the noise to a minimum. I'm pretty sure the filmmakers reckoned that anyone with a working brain would know that.

The robbery event itself isn't particularly important to the plot, as you can see by the lack of detailed information and time spent on it. The main plot is the love story between Gal and his wife and the disruption of their ideal life by one Don Logan. In an unusual twist for a film of this nature, the actual heist itself is a only a mechanism to bring the characters together.

If you think the main plot is the robbery, then you have completely misunderstood this film.

reply

[–] bing-57 16 years ago

> I am certain the filmmakers could have went into every excruciating detail to explain every single event in the film if they had wished.

I am not asking for every detail. I don't need to know the denominations of bills used to pay for the airlines tickets or the shoe size of the taxi driver.

But I do need to know the details of the major plot points, especially when they do not make sense to the average viewer. If they make plans to rob a bank and in the next scene they are robbing a jewelry store, I'll want to know why. Likewise if the king of France starts dancing the hokey pokey outside the bank, I'll want to know why.

I am actually surprised that there are so many people who sit in the theater and do all the work for the writers. If something doesn't make sense they'll just sit there and make up reasons why this or that happened.

Or maybe they'll just sit there and not even think about it and just clap and giggle at all the pretty lights.

> But they chose not to, they chose instead to grant the viewer with some intelligence.

Actually I think I am the intelligent one in this situation. I am the one asking questions and not simply assuming that some random and magical event happened off camera that made everything work out.

> Oviously the gang found some way of disabling the alarm

That's exactly what I mean. You just assume that something amazing happened off screen and that you don't need to worry about those things. Out of sight, out of mind.

> The robbery event itself isn't particularly important to the plot, as you can see by the lack of detailed information and time spent on it.

I understand what they did. But I disagree that the robbery was not important enough to bother explaining properly; bank robbery is a major plot point in any movie.

If not, the writers shouldn't have even brought it up in the first place. They could have just spent all their time focusing on the love triangle.

--
What Would Jesus Do For A Klondike Bar (WWJDFAKB)?

reply

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] bing-57 16 years ago

> If you see the film as a parody of the usual heist film

Okay, if it really was a parody then having gaps and unexplained things is perfectly fine. I've seen enough parodies to know that random stuff just happens and is never mentioned again. But this movie just didn't feel like a parody to me.

> Incidentally, in Philadelphia a few years back, a gang rented the space above a jewelry store and slowly chiseled thru the roof of the vault. The alarms are on the door.

They probably are only on the door for older alarm systems. But in this movie we were told that the vault had new state-of-the-art alarms. That would be tough to swallow that the best alarm company in town neglects to consider that someone might try to tunnel through a roof or wall.

--
What Would Jesus Do For A Klondike Bar (WWJDFAKB)?

reply

[–] polysicsarebest 14 years ago

"Parody" isn't the right word, but this felt kinda like SNATCH, LOCK STOCK, and all that stuff that was coming out for a while... a SPIN... you know.. kind of an unusual "TAKE" on the gangster genre. It might have started with Tarantino's remake of CITY ON FIRE, RESERVOIR DOGS, where the bank robbery isn't shown, so the entire movie becomes about the relationships of the gangsters in this big factory... from there, there's plenty of other movies kind of subvert the viewer's expectations.

Like I said, when I first saw the movie, I was frustrated that nothing really seemed to cohesively gel, but I can appreciate now that the film wasn't about the bank robbery; the bank robbery is kind of the MACGUFFIN, the thing that brings together all the characters, all the drama. As such, it isn't that "important", yet the contradiction is that it's also THE most important thing.

-
pre·ten·tious: characterized by assumption of dignity or importance.

reply

[–] fcukoffplease_001 16 years ago

Mr BNIGGGGGG..
Without wanting to sound like every other person on this thread:

Hmm..
It might be easy to look at this film as an example of a FILM, rather than looking at it on just one level and watching it as a story... Look into how they have decided to structre the film and what conventions they've used to say what they want to say...The scene with Don's death is the important part of that little sequence, and the hesit scene that it was inter cut(?) with was sort of just a It's not super important what happened in the heist, the film makers could've easily invented a way to overcome the pretend security system jus like in any other bank job film, but what's more important to look at is how the gangseters are shown and the impressoin you get of London from the scenes there...The methods of film making that make this film different from other ones... Who cares about content when the important thing that the film makers want is to set up a certain pace and rhythm and style in the little climax. It's not even important that they don't explain the maths of everything.........

Methinks that's why they're brilliant film makers, and if you had a go at this, you'd probably not be, sirrrr.
xXx

reply

[–] bing-57 16 years ago

> Who cares about content when the important thing that the film makers want is to set up a certain pace and rhythm

Ah yes. I see now.

The producers didn't care about the content of their film as long as it creates a mood. Fair enough.

Normally, however, I don't watch a movie for its mood; I watch it for its story. So having a coherent story is important to me.

> the film makers could've easily invented a way to overcome the pretend security system

Yup. And it would have taken all of about five seconds of screen time.

Crook: Wait a minute. What about the high-tech alarm?
Boss: Don't worry about it. Our guy got the deactivation code.
Crook: Okay. But then why are we jackhammering underwater.
Boss: Because I wanted to see Johnson in wet underwear. Get back to work.

--
What Would Jesus Do For A Klondike Bar (WWJDFAKB)?

reply

[–] daskonk 16 years ago

For a start I don't think this film was a parody of the Brit heist genre, nor do I think that the film-makers just wanted purely to set a mood and decided to cast aside such conventions as plot, narrative structure or character development but those are points to be debated another time.

In answer to your queries, I would say that the alarm was disabled with some sort of electro-magnetic device which would explain why the rush to get all the guys out of the water before it was set off, as water is a conductor.

You see all the lights etc. go off and then there's a flash & a slight cracking sound, almost like bacon frying, which you get when something shorts out.

It would have been in put in place when Teddy placed that cigarette pack in his safety deposit box earlier in the film.

Can't believe no-one else here realised this as it really is very straightforward and quite well signposted.

reply

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] unimaxor 14 years ago

Well done daskonk, that's what I was going to say. I'll admit though that I watched the film several times but its only because I enjoyed it so much. It has been 10 years!

reply

[–] raragona 14 years ago

Why doesn't the pool drain as they dig further and further and finally breach the vault?

reply

[–] keyzer2026 14 years ago

i believe that the reason gal was picked for the job was...

1, he had a good reputation as a solid, trustworthy & reliable associate that wouldn't rat anyone out should the job go t*ts up, this is probably the most important trait a 'gangster' can have & the 1st thing any other 'gangster' looks for when casing a score.

2, cos teddy had asked don to put a team together, don must have told him of his intention to call on gal, but when gal refused don reacted the way he did cos he had to save face in front of teddy and any other goons that were in on it.

reply

[–] dolifk 14 years ago

In answer to your queries, I would say that the alarm was disabled with some sort of electro-magnetic device which would explain why the rush to get all the guys out of the water before it was set off, as water is a conductor.

You see all the lights etc. go off and then there's a flash & a slight cracking sound, almost like bacon frying, which you get when something shorts out.

It would have been in put in place when Teddy placed that cigarette pack in his safety deposit box earlier in the film.

Can't believe no-one else here realised this as it really is very straightforward and quite well signposted.

I thought both things were signposted pretty obviously too. It was the bloody rabbit i didnt get ? :)

.
.
IMDB member since 2002
quis custodiet ipsos custodes

reply

[–] clashwho 10 years ago

The point of the movie is not to teach you how to rob a bank, you silly git.

All this machine does is swim, and eat, and make little sharks. -- Matt Hooper, JAWS

reply

[–] jimmysmitsimdb 10 years ago

> As for Gal's skills, I think they are irrelevant. Don picked him so he could go and see Jackie.

I understand that. But it would seem to me that a big bad mobster would want a slightly better reason to spend so much time and effort and money recruiting Gal simply so that he could operate a jackhammer in a pool. AS you pointed out, they spent 5 months making sure everything was perfect.

Yeah, you're right. Gal was there because he was a good thief and trusted. Jackie had nothing directly to do with it.

reply

[–] nutsberryfarm 13 years ago

makes sense to me.

We're not soldiers and he's not the enemy. He's a pizza man.

reply

[–] MrCandy 16 years ago

Everyone's answered pretty well the questions so I will just answer the last one; they didn't really need Gal at all. The whole point is that Don wanted to make Gal suffer. Simple as that.

Don is cruel, endlessly abusive psychopath. Pretty much everything he says is some sort of foul mouthed insult. Don is told to recruit some people (whether or not he recruited all those guys in the heist scene is unknown) so he used that oppurtunity to torture Gal. He knows Gal doesn't want back into the underworld, he can obviously see he is happy- so he wants to ruin that. Gal refutes the offer repeatedly so it ends up becoming a battle of wills.

A lot of people on these threads talk about Don being professional. Nothing about what he did was professional. He tried to kill Gal for chrissakes! I think that's probably more the reason why Teddy Bass didn't give a toss that Don was dead; he probably does unpredictable crap like that all the time. And of course the obvious benefits of more loot and less people knowing about the criminal conspiracy (i'd imagine many murky secrets died with Don)

reply

[–] bing-57 16 years ago

> Teddy Bass didn't give a toss that Don was dead; he probably does unpredictable crap like that all the time.

That observation just shifts the problem to Teddy. Why on earth would he hire Don to do some recruiting or even do anything at all?

If I were assembling a multi-million dollar bank job, the last person I'd want on the crew is some raving and unpredictable lunatic. And the second-to-last person I'd want on the crew is anybody that a raving lunatic recruited.

--
What Would Jesus Do For A Klondike Bar (WWJDFAKB)?

reply

[–] MrCandy 16 years ago

That's a fair point. But like Tommy DeVito in Goodfellas he couldn't be totally useless. He must've had some purpose otherwise Teddy himself would've killed Don. It's a pretty simple task, ask a bunch of seasoned, reliable criminals to be in a job they'd be crazy to refuse. Don evidently screwed up that particular assignment with his fixation on Gal.

But then here's another thing; when he was talking to that guy with the glasses he seemed cordial and capable of conversation without having to make glasses guy feel uncomfortable (he didn't even call him a *beep* Also he does say to Gal that he loves thieving and enjoys the "rush", so who knows. Maybe he's all right at his job in that sense but when it came to Gal he just had this insane desire to bully him. I dunno. Maybe, maybe not. On the other hand you could look at Don as a fearsome force to have on your side. A blunt object for certain, but he is quite skilled at intimidation. Just the mention of Don has the Gal & Co crap a brick, so presumably he's built up a reputation beyond his endless threats. Maybe more than just Gal were reluctant to join up and Don was there to make sure they did. Maybe they were less resilient than Gal turned out to be.

This is of course assuming Don was the only one assembling people. He does mention the heist has months of preparation, so he could've gotten together that large team possibly. I dunno.

Though if I were Teddy I'd probably see Don as an ok bet. Assuming, just assuming Don didn't assemble every thief that was there, then Don is just another brute he deployed to get people to help in the scam. Don is no loss. Conversely, assuming Don did get the entire crew from a list of people they've already worked with (that can't be a hard task, right?) then Don is STILL expendable because of his crazy tendencies.

Last but certainly not least is that we have to assume Teddy knew glasses guy was going to go to Don distinctly for help. Maybe Teddy, whose a pretty high up dude (far more than the crass Don) just said to Glasses guy "Get lots of guys" then he did the rest and assumed Glasses guy handled it accordingly. Later a bunch of guys appear, glasses guy says "here you go", Teddy says "cheers"- when enquired as to where he got them Glasses guy mentions Don, who just happens to have not showed up but Gal did instead. Hence how Teddy's interest in Gal is perked halfway through the film.

Sadly everything I've said is purely conjecture but a lot of the movie is implicit so any guess is as good as the next.

reply

[–] 16 years ago

[deleted]

[–] Backlot_Manager 16 years ago

Bing57,

I'd be interested in knowing what you thought of the burglary sequences in this 1981 film (if you've seen it, that is, which I'm guessing you have):

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083190/

In case you haven't seen it, here is the first 10 minutes (preceded by a minute of trivia):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TMnXTkBP20

reply

[–] bing-57 16 years ago

I have not seen it but I have now put it on my Netflix queue.

--
What Would Jesus Do For A Klondike Bar (WWJDFAKB)?

reply

[–] craigington 14 years ago

the reason winstone's character is being recruited is because he's happy and kingsley's the most miserable man in the world and can't stand it. i watched it with the director's commentary on and he said as much.

reply

[–] bing-57 14 years ago

> the reason winstone's character is being recruited is because he's happy and kingsley's the most miserable man in the world and can't stand it.

So the only reason was to create conflict for the audience to worry about?

--
What Would Jesus Do For A Klondike Bar (WWJDFAKB)?

reply

[–] angelofvic 14 years ago

the last person I'd want on the crew is some raving and unpredictable lunatic. And the second-to-last person I'd want on the crew is anybody that a raving lunatic recruited.

You're forgetting that anyone who is an underworld mobster and who shoots people in cold blood as if they did it every day is already a raving lunatic.

If you listen to the commentary to the film, it explains very clearly why Teddy picks Don -- Don is his faithful and most reliable sergeant. Don will do ANYTHING for Teddy, and do it blindly. without question, and make sure it gets done. He's the most loyal bulldog any mobster could want. Sadly, nobody liked him (and that includes Teddy), so nobody cared that he was dead.

.

reply

[–] polysicsarebest 14 years ago

GAL had no special skills, beyond being a team player, and getting the job done. Being reliable and all. I dunno. It never really says what he did, but he made himself reclusive, in the middle of nowhere, which Don noticed, so you can infer that he got out fast and got AWAY, which may have pissed off some people -- he also took the ruby earrings during the robbery; he might have had a history of doing that, which may also have rubbed people the wrong way. I took it that this job was supposed to be done as a favor of some sort, hence why the cut was so small (Don says "1% cut but it's not just about that..."). I think that's why he was so damn persistent... and insistent.

But it was also not just about Gal. He comes there specifically to see Jackie, didn't he say it's the only girl he ever loved? He gets pissed at himself while in the bathroom for what he said at the club, appearing to have feelings briefly.

Really, and I said this on another post, my problem with this film is how much is unexplained. It really doesn't add up to much, as a movie, which bothered me at first... so much unexplained, in the actions and dialogue, and relationships, and motivations of characters. But after some more viewings, I appreciated that you could infer plenty if you watched closely and read between the lines.

-
pre·ten·tious: characterized by assumption of dignity or importance.

reply

[–] blufftoni 13 years ago

I think it's mentioned in a conversation between Gal and DeeDee that he had done some time inside.

I took that as being that he had previously taken the fall for something and not given up any of his contacts.

I think Gal starts off as being an irrelevance other than an excuse for Don to see Jackie again. Once there though his personality takes over as he tries to get Gal to say yes. Don seemed like the sort of guy it would be difficult to say no to.

reply

[–] gorgsharpy 13 years ago

I liked it - poetically logically - because Gal wants off, BUT ...

1) Gal is in his pool in Spain to handle a big rock that almost killed him.

Then 2) he goes to London and ends up working a coup de banc underwater in a swimmingpool.

And by then we don't know where Don is.

So, 3) we go back to the pool in Spain. And now we know where Don is. That is: very much alive in Gal's subconscience that underwater symbolizes.

reply

[–] jimmysmitsimdb 11 years ago

Gal's special skill was that he was a trusted member of the crew. He was known and a good criminal.

reply

[–] vivlinglee 10 years ago

Has anyone considered that the Banker (James Fox) may have disabled the alarm or perhaps given Teddy some information on how to disable it, since he was in on it, and was probably going to get a cut of the loot. Which also, as well as getting rid of loose ends, is quite monetarily beneficial for Teddy and makes his murder make even more sense.

reply