Unlike other series, “Sexy Beast” never feels like it’s overstaying its welcome, even at eight episodes, as it feeds in backstory and psychological details that we all but gulp down in voyeuristic fascination. It’s one of the biggest surprises of this new year.

The new Sexy Beast isn’t quite as electric as its source material, but to match that film’s vibrancy would be a major feat in itself. Still, it manages to do justice to these three iconic characters as it shows their rises to power. Oh—and, by God, it is sexy as all hell.

Ironically, upping the gore only blunts the increasingly jaded viewer’s response over time. “Sexy Beast” is often so preoccupied with adding emotional and physical stakes that the show distracts from a criminal gang’s simple quest to stick it to the man.

Sexy Beast the series exorcises his fever-dream flourishes and fills in the blanks with monotonous mobster clichés. It’s entirely lacking in the eerie power of the source material, instead playing out like EastEnders with a bigger budget while lacking any sense of mischief or danger.

While the heists, pummelling and kinky threats are not necessarily unenjoyable, the whole series – Deedee and Gal’s love story aside – is pretty one-note, with Gal reduced to “affable blond fella” and the majority of the cast doing a version of panto villain.

The series takes a lean 85-minute film and torturously stretches its plot points to gratuitous extremes, another modern show that comes across more like an awkwardly-extended movie than anything else.

Not only is Sexy Beast a series that feels unnecessary, given its connections to a film that wasn’t a big hit a quarter century ago, but it doesn’t even rise to the level of being a good heist show on its own merits.