Another day, another fascinating thriller with a lot going on. This time it’s Sexy Beast, which I saw tonight for the first time since recognising its homoerotic aspects, and this time came across as a rich dark study of male power and sexuality.

Ray Winstone is Gal, a criminal who’s retired to Spain. Thinks he’s retired, that is. Don Logan, played by Ben Kingsley, has other ideas. Yes, we’re in a ‘one last job’ story, but superbly scripted by Louis Mellis and David Scinto, one which gets inside the minds of some beautifully and convincingly twisted characters.

It all kicks off with Ray Winstone sunning himself outside his hacienda when a boulder comes crashing down the hill and into his pool. It foreshadows Ben Kingsley’s entrance: he’s a psychotic gangster determined to get Ray to take part in a job in London. Only, there’s more to it than that. Before Kingsley sets eyes on Winstone he sees Winstone’s pool boy, the pool itself being symbolic of the love that exists between Gal and his partner Dee (it features a tiled heart design at the bottom). And as the pool’s guardian, the teenager later tries to defend Gal from Don, as well as being the subject of Don’s envy. All subtly painted, but undeniably there.

Don is a gloriously deranged creation, equal parts vile and violent, and wonderfully conflicted about his feelings for Gal. At the very least he resents that Gal has left his mates in the lurch and has no contact with them any more. And there’s plenty more to it, as there is more generally within the underworld that Gal thought he’d left behind. Some of the characters, including Ian McShane, the Mr Big behind the robbery that Don wants Gal to be part of, are bisexual. And when the heist itself takes place, the screen is awash with near-naked men swimming underwater to get the booty they crave.

Sexy Beast is head and shoulders above the empty posturing of the other Brit gangster films that were so prevalent for a while, an incisive and elegant dissection of the intersection of criminality and masculinity. And lest that sound too pompous, it’s also wonderfully directed (by Jonathan Glazer), superbly acted, very funny, and well scored. More than anything, it shows the capacity of genre material to work as a way of exploring big ideas - especially ones that were implicit in older, more naive, takes on storytelling in the same genre.