A Common Man (2013)

I watched it not because of Ben Kingsley but because I wanted to see if it was as good as the original, 'A Wednesday'. Now I know comparing two movies is not a right thing to do but come-on! It's a remake and people are bound to draw comparisons. This movie was such a disappointment it made me cringe inwardly. Let me first say that 'A Wednesday' is a brilliantly written and directed movie. Kudos to Neeraj Pandey. All 'A Common Man' aka 'Death Watch' had to do was just stick to the original screenplay and get good actors to play the roles.But nope! I agree Kingsley did a decent job. However, I would have to say that Naseeruddin Shah did a better job in the original movie. And the rest of the cast was absolute rubbish. They were no where near what the Indian actors had delivered for the original movie. Ben Cross was supposed to play the Chief of Police (played expertly by Anupam Kher in the original) but he didn't have an ounce of authority in him. He looked like a constable instead of the chief. His deputy, Patrick Rutnam, looked malnourished and unfit to even be a policeman. And Frederick-James Koch who was supposed to be a bad ass cop (played exceptionally well by Jimmy Shergill in the original) looked more like a gangster than a cop. All in all, the casting and direction let this movie down terribly.If you want to watch a good movie, go watch 'A Wednesday' (with subtitles if don't understand Hindi). This remake is a just an absolute waste of time.

It starts with a mysterious man going about placing bombs in several places of Sri Lanka. He even has the intestinal fortitude to go to the police station, make a complaint of a lost wallet so they actually see his face, and plant a bomb in the toilet of the police station. Is he gutsy or just plain crazy? Well, stick around, we'll find out.He has some technological expertise because he calls using several cell phone and switches cards so they can't pin him down. And he calls and gives advance information to a young news reporter so all of his escapades are broadcast to the public. He wants some terrorists released from prison or the bombs will go off. When the police are reluctant to cooperate he tells them where to find the one in the police station. OOPS, now they know he is not joking.Suspense builds as we see the faces of the people close to the bombs on a bus and a train. We begin to identify with them, they are no longer just one of a thousand faces in a crowd. We are left wondering if he will blow them up if he is unable to free the terrorists. And we are quite certain they will probably just go about killing more innocents.There are of course problems getting the right people on line to arrange for the release of the prisoners, but eventually it happens and the bombing terrorists are loaded on a plane and sent on their way. I won't tell you how it all ends because that would totally destroy the plot of the movie.Early on I was guessing how it would end and I was right. Nothing like you might expect.If you need numerous explosions to entertain this might not appeal to you. But if you like suspense, and a bit of a chess game plot, this will keep you entertained.

OK this is a prime example of why we should look at the reviews for films, I didn't for this one just noticed Ben Kingsley was in it and it was under new releaes cover and story looked OK so thought it would be a good film HOW WRONG WAS I anyone who remembers prisoner cell block H well the acting in that was fantastic compared to this its Soooo bad im sure it is meant to be a joke or something. and the director Chandran Rutnam needs a good kicking for wasting peoples time what a muppet and i am not giving it 1 star im giving it minus a million COMPLETE TRASH AVOID AVOID AVOID. Honestly its so bad because the Storyline is actually a good idea bit of a Bruce Willis type film i expected not this tripe. Acting really does suck its like 1980 junk soooo BAD.

Alright so this film gets a LOT of flak for being bad. Bad film making. Poorly acted. Poor ADR dubbing/editing. A weak script. Low budget. So be it. I'll give it that. Ben Kingsley is an incredibly underrated actor and his performance alone here makes this film worth watching, particularly because of the wasted potential of his villainous character in Iron Man 3 as The Mandarin. I won't spoil what went wrong in that film for those who haven't seen it, suffice to say that if director Shane Black had taken his character seriously, Kingsley's performance in A Common Man would have delivered a diabolically sinister Mandarin the fans were all expecting to see.Academy Award winner Ben Kingsley delivers an uncompromising performance as "The Man" a terrorist who plants five bombs around the city of Columbo, Sri Lanka demanding the release of political prisoners from the D.I.G. (Mister DIG) played by Ben Cross, another underrated British performer, in a suspenseful game of cat and mouse. Unfortunately the usually dependable Ben Cross' performance is hampered by bad dubbing and very melodramatic acting but Kinglsey shines in a role reminiscent of his character of hit-man Don Logan in Sexy Beast.As others have pointed out, there are indeed some audio sync issues as it appears the whole film was ADR'd and lip sync is annoyingly off a little at times (about a frame or two). So it's not the best technically produced film and the acting by the supporting Hindi cast is almost laughably bad at times, but if you want to see Kingsley playing the real Mandarin I suggest you check it out for his performance alone for a glimpse of what could and should have been in Iron Man 3.