Sexy Beast review: Sarah Greene’s performance is impeccable, but she can’t save this shocking mockney cocktail, strewn with lazy violence

Sarah Greene, the Cork actor whose memorable roles include a vengeful sibling in Sharon Horgan’s Bad Sisters and Paul Mescal’s mother in Normal People, gives the standout performance in the new gangster noir thriller Sexy Beast (Paramount +, from Thursday).

Sadly, that isn’t saying a great deal. This prequel to the cult 2000 Jonathan Glazer gangster flick completely misunderstands why the original was so beloved. It spends eight episodes fussing about in a haze of sub-Guy Ritchie London underworld cliches, never overcoming its slack-jawed awe for the source material.

Greene is Deedee – a porn actress who dreams of going it alone as a producer, writer and director. Having once been told by Harvey Weinstein that he was going to “make her a star”, Greene herself knows only too well that the entertainment industry has a darker side (talking to the Daily Telegraph in 2019, she described Weinstein as “a pig”). She is sharp and spiky as Deedee, portrayed in the Glazer film by Amanda Redman.

Irish actors are good at many things, but accents aren’t always on that list. For instance, the big lie at the heart of the deliciously manipulative Saltburn was that Barry Keoghan could pull off a Merseyside lilt. Similarly, the most significant challenge Oscar-nominee Cillian Murphy has faced was keeping his Birmingham burr on the straight and narrow in Peaky Blinders.

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Greene, by contrast, is impeccable as an East End moll with a heart of gold and iron in her guts. Deedee falls for bad boy Gal – a highly weaponised Del Boy played by Ray Winstone in the movie and James McCardle in the series. He’s unhappily engaged to the oblivious Marjorie. Deedee has a thuggish boyfriend. Of course, as we know from the Glazer film, true love wins out, and Gal and Deedee will get together.

[ Sexy Beast star Sarah Greene: ‘To play someone so sexually empowered, I had to fall in love with my body’ ]

In the meantime, this unnecessary prequel spirals into a shocking mockney cocktail, strewn with lazy violence and featuring an exploitative rape scene. We join Gal and his psychopathic pal Don – Emun Elliott taking over from Ben Kingsley – as they rob and steal their way across London. In the process, they stumble upon a conspiracy involving a toff and smuggled heirlooms. But there is none of the weird energy of the Glazer film.

The pretence of the show taking place in the 1990s is laughable, too. Some passing references to rave and ecstasy aside, this could be a spin-off of The Sweeney circa 1976. With so much else misfiring, Greene is to be commended for the strength of her performance. But try as she might, she cannot elevate a disappointing and baffling attempt to expand an obscure art-house movie into a peak TV franchise.