Movie Reviews

Ordinary Decent Criminal is a marginally fun but largely forgetable entry into the Lock Stock & Two Smoking Barrels / Snatch "crime-comedy" genre. Kevin Spacey plays Michael Lynch, Dublin's most "notorious" criminal. Notorious not because he's a mean guy or a murderer or anything like that, but instead because he and his gang take a lot of pleasure in outwitting and humiliating the local police. The movie takes place as the police are finally beginning to close in on Lynch (having never before been able to actually convict him of anything), so Lynch decides that his next job should not be about stealing a huge amount of money, but rather it should be about showing the police once and for all that he is smarter than they will ever be.

I suppose that's a fairly interesting idea for a story. The problem is that it's nothing particularly new or special. There are plenty of other films out there in which we watch someone rob a bank or something, and then just as the police are about to make their catch, the guy pulls a humourous (though often totally implausible) fast one on the cops, and gets away unscathed. It's kind of fun to watch, but doesn't make for much of a 'complete' movie.

Kevin Spacey is pretty decent in the lead role (and pulls off an Irish accent quite well, ye know). But it's a really simple character, and it didn't feel quite right watching a great actor like Spacey play a really straightforward character.

One last complaint: I really didn't like the ending. Why did they have to throw in such a lame, "good guy-criminals all get away" conclusion? Not only did it seem like a cheap emotional trick, it was another of those totally implausible sort of things that had me thinking "Yeah... riiiight."

It's certainly not a horrible movie -- there's a lot of "okay" stuff in it, but nothing truly "good".