UNLIMITED STREAMING
WITH PRIME VIDEO
TRY 30-DAY TRIAL
Home > Comedy >

Ordinary Decent Criminal

Ordinary Decent Criminal (2000)

January. 07,2000
|
6.3
| Comedy Thriller

Michael Lynch is a notorious criminal with two wives and a flair for showmanship. He's also a huge embarrassment to the local police, who are determined to bring him down once and for all.

...

Watch Trailer

Cast

Similar titles

Reviews

morrison-dylan-fan
2000/01/07

After having heard that this was a good film from a friend of mine years ago.I have at last rented it,and while it got swept-under by the fantastic American Beauty,this is still a very good Irish/English film. The Plot:Michael Lynch(Kevin"K-Pax"Spacy)is someone who cares about his wife and kids,but he also leads another life as a leader of a gang(that includes a pre-fame Colin Farrel!)The gang are constantly getting followed by police who want to catch them doing the crimes,due to the media outlets making Michael look like a modern-day "Robin Hood!",so Michael decides to pull off the "ultumate" crime-that is to steel some very valuable works of art.But with Micales addiction to the lime-light,and with the police catching up,the crime is sure to end in bloodshed. View on the film:While the accent's in the film do make it a bit tough to fully get sucked into the film(due to knowing how the actors "really" sound.)They are able to still keep you interested in the film.Spacy gives a very good and interesting performance in that,unlike Spacys character in American Beauty,Spacy has a self-confidence and determination thats unlike most of his performances. Final view on the film.A very enjoyable English/Irish film,with a very good performance by Spacy.

More
Stephen Watt
2000/01/08

This film worked quite well as a comedy, with a notorious criminal making fools out of the Gardai. As such, I would have given it 7 or 8 out of 10. Kevin Spacey is always worth watching, as is David Kelly, who had a cameo role as the priest. However I have a couple of reservations.Firstly, you can only go so far with comedies on this subject: so you have to ignore the torture and violence scenes. You could have done an "A-Team" where nobody gets hurt, but since this is loosely based on a real life criminal, that would have been hypocritical.Secondly, I have never in my entire born days heard such appalling Dublin accents. I had to laugh when I discovered that the dialogue coach was called Brendan Gunn - he should have been fired instead of all the other guns that were fired on screen. Spacey's accent never got past Rockall. And he was far from being alone in this respect. Casting directors should know better.Dublin accents (north or south of the Liffey) are not easy, even for Cork or Belfast people, but for good examples of it being done well, see Kate Hudson in "About Adam".However I have to admit that I did quite enjoy the film.Finally for examples of accents bad enough to spoil films, try Michael Caine in Hurry Sundown and Sean Connery in The Molly Maguires or anything else for that matter. Except that Connery always gets away with it.

More
msbull
2000/01/09

I was really looking forward to watching this film. It had all the ingredients of a great tongue in cheeker, but it just didn't come together AT ALL. Kevin Spacey's accent was tolerable except that sometimes he forgot to use it and I would rather NOT have had to listen to Linda Fiorentino's pale attempt. She and Helen Baxendale were totally lacking in charm and personality, thankfully their screen kids had loads, so you could find at least some members of his 2 families endearing. You could have strained spaghetti with the plot and I'm sure that the script was written by some adolescent schoolboy in a high school English competition. That said, when I wasn't cringing, I was smirking so it wasn't a totally wasted 90 minutes. I did find the superimposing of Kevin's face on the painting very clever and quite funny. Maybe I'm being a bit harsh but I was expecting a bit of quality viewing and it just never came.

More
tomimt
2000/01/10

Who doesn't like witty, lovable criminals, who out wit every copper and other rival criminals in a heartbeat? That's a crime movie genre, which actually appeals to me: smart dialogs, funny action and so on.So, in "Ordinary Decent Criminal" we have one of the greatest living actors, Kevin Spacey, who is playing Irish mobster named Michael Lynch, and he's just such a fellow I described. There's also Colin Farrell in a small role as one of the thugs in Michael's gang. Actually rather good acting all around from all of the actors and that's the only reason this movie stays afloat, because the script is not that funny as it tries to be.Sure, it has couple of good laughs in it, but most of the jokes feel little forced.Direction is pretty decent, not worst thing ever directed, but certainly not the greatest crime movie either.Good for couple of laughs.

More