Ordinary
Decent Criminal is a movie that you may not have even heard of - in spite of it’s
impressive cast. Kevin Spacey plays Michael Lynch a locally famous thief/family
man, who ostensibly lives off the dole, while pulling one big heist after another.
You could drive a lorry through the holes in the plausibility of this Thaddeus
O' Sullivan directed version of the Keystone Cops. Partly based on Martin Cahill
(the Dublin thief whose exploits inspired John Boorman's The General) Lynch thumbs
his nose at the authorities and if he gets in a legal pinch from time to time
he merely pays an IRA acquaintance to blow up the car of the Judge and away he
goes with his smug little Kevin Spacey grin.
Lynch
is an interesting family man, kind and attentive to his children whom are mothered
both by Linda Fiorentino and evidently Linda’s sister - both women seem to
happily share his marital attentions. To list the problems with this film would
not be worth either of our time. Strangely Colin Farrell has a fairly sizable
part in the film, but I don’t think the camera settles on his face long enough
for him to do any actual acting. Lynch and his cronies all of which you’ll
recognize from various other better Irish films are celebrities of a sort and
at one point it gets so ridiculous that Lynch and his men are followed around
24/7 by at least a dozen Irish Guard, including a high ranking official.
All
of which makes it pretty difficult for Lynch to pull his final caper, which has
a bit of a Thomas Crown angle, but the problem is that you really don’t care
whether he succeeds or fails because this film is so ineptly crafted that you
could give a rats ass about anybody that pops up on screen. Spacey himself may
not be natural cast as an Irish folk hero, but he does bring his usual sly wit
to the role, managing to make Lynch at least likable, if not very interesting.
It's just a pity that the film-makers, like the bumbling police officers who follow
Lynch all over town without coming close to catching him, sometimes seem so in
awe of Spacey themselves that they forget about everything else. Like I did.
