From the moment viewers first encounter Gary “Gal” Dove (Ray Winstone) in Jonathan Glazer’s directorial debut, Sexy Beast, it’s clear that you can’t find a “fatter and happier” man. Lying out in the sun in a state of overly oiled, overly tanned bliss, his voiceover begins, “Oh, yeah. Bloody hell. I’m sweatin’ here. Roastin’. Boilin’. Bakin’. Swelterin’. It’s like a sauna. A furnace. You could fry an egg on my stomach. Ohh… Ooh, now that is hot. It’s ridiculous. Tremendous. Fantastic. Fan-dabby-dozy-tastic.” We soon see that he’s next to his own private pool, living in a house that appears quite remote. (Though it’s never stated, Gal is supposed to be somewhere along the Costa Del Sol of Andalusia.) Obviously, he’s on what can be called a “permanent vacation.” Granted, in his former line of work, that term doesn’t have the most positive of connotations. Indeed, it likely means you’ve been “put out to pasture” in a decidedly more murderous way. But for a rare few criminals and assassins, like Gal, there is a way through to the other side…or so one would like to believe.
Gal certainly did—before his retired bliss spent living with his wife/love of his life, DeeDee (Amanda Redman), was so rudely interrupted by none other than his former employer (a head hunter, if you will): Don Logan (Ben Kingsley). Well-known and feared among London’s criminal underworld, Logan’s role as a “recruiter” kicks into overdrive when crime boss Teddy Bass (Ian McShane) hatches a plan to rob an elite, supposedly “impregnable” bank after getting a tip about it from the chairman, Harry (James Fox), at an orgy. Though Gal’s never heard of the bank in question, Imperial Emblatt, Don claims it’s because “they’re one of those sniffy lot, don’t need publicity.” Gal himself wishes he didn’t have any “publicity” right now, with Don so far up his ass about partaking of this robbery (an eight-man job) that he finds it all but impossible to shit him back out. Even though he assures DeeDee before Don’s arrival that he’s going to tell him no to the job and that’ll be that. Ah, so sweet for Gal to think he ever had a choice in the matter. Alas, there’s a reason one of the taglines for the movie is: “Yes or Yes?” The word “no,” to Don, won’t be tolerated.
What’s more, it becomes slowly revealed to Gal that Don’s motives for turning up in the south of Spain and homing in on him as the guy for the job might not be entirely without its own ulterior motive. Specifically, wanting to see Jackie (Julianne White), the girlfriend of Gal’s best mate, Aitch (Cavan Kendall). The two apparently had a little something going on before Jackie was with Aitch, and Don never got it out of his head that he loved her (even though sociopaths can’t love).
As Don becomes more and more aggressive throughout his extended visit (he claims he missed his flight and needs to stay the night now), Gal is running out of ways he can say no to the stubborn fucker. At first, he tells him quite simply, “I’m…retired.” Don balks, “Are ya?” Gal assures, “‘Fraid so. I haven’t…not got lots of money. I got enough.” And it’s that statement right there that proves to be the most terrifying to someone like Don, who wields money (as much as emotional manipulation) like a weapon to get people to do what he wants. Because without that ultimate motivator—capitalism’s greatest tool—the world just doesn’t make sense to an exploiter and opportunist like Don. So it is that he “has to” start getting rougher with Gal, reminding him that “retired” or not, he can’t bite the hand that fed him enough to think he was retired in the first place. Prompting him to mock (in a manner that would also work on John Wick for thinking he could escape the High Table), “You think this is the Wheel of Fortune? You make your dough and fuck off? ‘Thanks, Don. See you, Don.’ ‘Off to Spain, Don.’ ‘Fuck off, Don.’ Lie in your pool laughing at me, d’you think I’ll have that?” What he’s really asking, though, is: do you honestly think I, the aggressor, the alpha, the person with more power than you, will allow you to enjoy yourself when I support a system that traffics only in misery?
But Gal never appeared to be a willing participant in that system for the long haul. And his departure from the proverbial rat race (illegal or not) in England is enough to spook other people by making them question their own lives. Like, what the fuck are they doing? Does Gal know something about “better living” that they don’t? Hence, Gal’s voiceover, “People say, ‘Don’t you miss it, Gal?’ I say, ‘What? England? Nah, fuckin’ place. It’s a dump. Don’t make me laugh. Gray, grimy, sooty. What a shithole. What a toilet. Every cunt with a long face, shufflin’ about, moanin’ or worried. No thanks, not for me.’” And this was back in 2000 (though the movie’s wide release was in 2001) when Gal was saying it, so one can only imagine how vindicated he must feel about that statement now, when Britain has only sunk further into a state of misery and disrepair. But, on a larger, more metaphorical scale, what people are asking Gal when they ask him if he misses “it,” is if he misses making money, ergo being “relevant.” Being in the world and of the world. Gal, however, knew that soft living is where it’s at.
To be sure, long before it became both chic and nameable, Gal was living the “soft life.” A way of being that provides “more time and energy for what makes you happy and as little time as possible focusing on what doesn’t.” Unfortunately, now just as then, there are any number of Don-like forces in this world that don’t want people to live the soft life. Not just because a considerable part of them is jealous about it (/they don’t know how to switch off and achieve that life themselves), but because the more people become wise to soft living, the more the system of capitalism gets debunked/generally crumbles. And that’s the last thing that both people in positions of power and people who have invested their entire being into the system want to happen.
This form of jealousy and fear tends to manifest as anger and rage on the part of the anti-soft-lifer. An anger that works toward making the person living the soft life feel both guilty and worthless for the choice they’ve made to effectively “opt out” of something like “having ambition.” Which, by capitalistic standards, frankly means selling your soul to do something you hate for a living (and, these days, still barely scraping by despite this sacrifice—at least back in the day, the promise of owning a home generally came with such professional dissatisfaction). Thus, Don not only outright calls Gal “lazy” at one point after punching him in the face just as he’s waking up in his bedroom, but he also goads, “Do it.” Gal replies, “This is madness. I’ve had enough Crime and Punishment bollocks. I’m happy here.” Don snaps back, “I won’t let you be happy! Why should I?!” Because the unhappy people committed to the non-soft life simply won’t compute that there can be happiness without suffering needlessly for it. Without the forfeiture of countless hours that could have been spent actually relaxing or otherwise enjoying oneself. But no, “enjoyment” is not the name of the game in any capitalistic enterprise.
After a series of unfortunate (or fortunate, depending on how you look at it) events leads Gal to do the job he was so vehemently opposed to doing back in London, when it’s all over, he finally has to say outright to Teddy Bass, “I’m not into this anymore.” The “this” he refers to isn’t just the life of crime he was once supposedly “at home” in, but a life so entrenched in angst and anxiety due to being ruled solely by the pressures of so-called success. Albeit capitalistic success, which dictates constantly amassing more, more, more. Filling the void within via the promise of more money, but, alas, never more fulfillment. Those, like Gal, who become wise to the soft life will always be deemed a threat to the Dons and Teddys of this world, who can’t fathom an existence not rooted in torment and wasted time. Though, of course, realizing that what they’re doing is a waste of time never quite sets in either.
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