Ordinary Decent Criminal
Ireland/Germany/USA/UK 1999
Reviewed by Geoffrey Macnab
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Dublin, the present. The local authorities are unable to make charges stick against notorious thief Michael Lynch or his gang. They carry out a series of ever more outlandish heists, the most daring of which is the theft of a Caravaggio painting.
Ruthless police officer Noel Quigley begins to tail Lynch wherever he goes. Quigley and his officers harass Lynch, his wife Christine and Christine's sister Lisa (also Lynch's lover). Lynch's gang members begin to lose faith in him. Against his advice, they consider going into business with the IRA, to whom they hope to sell the stolen Caravaggio painting. They are ambushed by the police and several gang members.
Using this as a diversion, the IRA rob a bank on the other side of town. Lynch learns what is happening and gets to the bank where he and fellow gang member Tony Brady hold up the IRA thieves. The police lay siege to the building. Lynch is trapped inside with no way out. Finally, a man who looks like Lynch appears from the building and dies in a hail of bullets. Although the face is disfigured, Christine and Lisa identify the body as Lynch's.
It later turns out that the man killed was the IRA leader. Lynch himself is still at large.
Review
Long before Michael Lynch removes his trousers to display his buttocks to the hapless policemen who have failed, yet again, to arrest him, the cracks begin to appear in Ordinary Decent Criminal. The casting is eccentric (Linda Fiorentino, the femme fatale from The Last Seduction, isn't an obvious choice as a Dublin housewife); there is some incongruously chirpy music from Damon Albarn; and Lynch himself, riding round town on an old motorbike, often looks as if he has just escaped from a Wallace and Gromit animated short. Partly based on Martin Cahill (the Dublin thief whose exploits inspired John Boorman's The General) Lynch comes across as a blue-collar version of Pierce Brosnan's Thomas Crown. As played by Kevin Spacey, he's a sleek, charismatic figure less interested in financial gain than in bamboozling the authorities. He even shares Crown's relish for stealing Old Masters and is narcissistic enough to see himself as a counterpart to the handsome thief portrayed in the Caravaggio he steals.
Director Thaddeus O' Sullivan never leaves us in any doubt that Lynch is cleverer than his antagonists, be they crude, violent IRA men or incompetent police chiefs like Commissioner Daly (played by Minder regular, Patrick Malahide). But O'Sullivan struggles to convince us of Lynch's credentials as a dedicated family man and contemporary Robin Hood. Whereas Brendan Gleeson (the star of The General) made his Cahill a hearty, gregarious latter-day MacHeath, Spacey's thief is colder, more Machiavellian and much more self-absorbed. He is not averse to using bullyboy tactics to scare judges or to torturing gang members he suspects of betraying him. Given the jaunty nature of the storytelling, these sudden flurries of violence are disconcerting - what seems like an Irish version of The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) one moment is liable to turn very nasty the next.
O'Sullivan's 1995 film Nothing Personal offered a handful of strongly drawn characters (Ian Hart's psychopath, James Frain's Loyalist terrorist, John Lynch's Catholic single father) and worked both as a thriller and as a study of a divided community. In contrast, Ordinary Decent Criminal hinges on a single performance - that of Spacey - and has little to tell us about the society to which Lynch belongs. Spacey's role seems to have been beefed up at the expense of everybody else. Fiorentino and Helen Baxendale (the two sisters who love and share him) aren't given any worthwhile scenes of their own. And it's little wonder Scottish actors Peter Mullan and David Hayman look so surly as Spacey steals scene after scene from under their noses.
Spacey himself may not be natural casting as an Irish folk hero, but he does bring his usual sly wit to the role, managing to make Lynch a dark and complex character. It's just a pity that the film-makers, like the police officers who follow Lynch all over town without coming close to catching him, sometimes seem so in awe of their lead actor that they forget about everything else.
Credits
- Director
- Thaddeus O'Sullivan
- Producer
- Jonathan Cavendish
- Screenplay
- Gerard Stembridge
- Director of Photography
- Andrew Dunn
- Editor
- William Anderson
- Production Designer
- Tony Burrough
- Music/Score Producer
- Damon Albarn
- ©Unicorn Distributors Limited
- Production Companies
- Icon Entertainment International presents
- a Little Bird production in association with Tatfilm and Trigger Street Productions
- Produced in association with Miramax Films, Bord Scannán na héireann/The Irish Film Board, The Greenlight Fund, Filmstiftung NRW
- Supported by The National Lottery through The Arts Council of England
- Executive Producers
- James Mitchell
- Christine Ruppert
- Icon Entertainment: Ralph Kamp
- Paul Tucker
- Bord Scannán na héireann:
- Rod Stoneman
- 2nd Unit Producer
- Lesley Cavendish
- Co-producer
- Martha O'Neill
- Associate Producer
- Margaret Moggan
- Production Co-ordinator
- Janette Hamill
- Production Manager
- Dara McClatchie
- Location Managers
- Andrew McCarthy
- 2nd Unit:
- Naoise Barry
- Liz Kenny
- Location Co-ordinator
- Rowena Kelly
- Post-production
- Supervisor:
- Stephen Law
- Co-ordinator:
- Polly Duval
- 2nd Unit Director
- Ivan Zacharias
- Assistant Directors
- Deborah Saban
- Marian Barlow
- Olivia Lloyd
- Ciara O'Sullivan
- 2nd Unit:
- Liz Gill
- David Cain
- Script Supervisors
- Emer Conroy
- 2nd Unit:
- Catherine Morris
- Casting Directors
- Ros Hubbard
- John Hubbard
- Script Consultant
- Maggie Pope
- 2nd Unit Director of Photography
- Jan Velicky
- Camera Operators
- Mike Proudfoot
- Keith Sewell
- Steadicam Operator
- Keith Sewell
- Special Visual Effects
- Mill Film
- Digital Visual Effects Supervisor:
- Karl Mooney
- Digital Visual Effects Producer:
- Paul Edwards
- 2D Digital Compositor:
- Michael Illingworth
- Digital Matte Paintings:
- Simon Whicker
- Visual Effects Editor:
- John Seymour
- Special Effects
- Team FX
- Technicians:
- Brendan Byrne
- Kevin Byrne
- Pat Redmond
- Oliver Byrne
- Dermot Byrne
- Kevin Kearns
- Graphic Designer
- Lisa Smyth
- Associate Editor
- Christine Marier
- Art Director
- Clodagh Conroy
- Draughtsman
- Conor Dennison
- Storyboard Artist
- Romek Delimata
- Costume Designer
- Jane Robinson
- Wardrobe Supervisor
- Ger Scully
- Chief Make-up Artist
- Morna Ferguson
- Chief Hairdresser
- Lorraine Glynn
- Titles
- Designed by:
- Man-Made
- Created by:
- Men in White Coats
- Opticals
- General Screen Enterprises
- Music Programmers
- Tom Girling
- Jason Cox
- Orchestral Music Arrangers/Conductors
- Darryl Kok
- Hilary Skewes
- Mike Smith
- Music Supervisors
- Toni Halliday
- Michael Lustig
- Music Editor
- Terry Delsing
- Soundtrack
- "Special Brew", "Come Together", "Film Ballad" by/performed by Damon Albarn; "EuroDisco" by Amanda McKinnon, Steve Clark, John Clark, performed by BIS; "Fire in My Heart" by Huw Bunford, Cian Ciaran, Dafydd Leuan, Guto Prycc, Gruff Rhys, performed by Super Furry Animals; "Gopher Mambo" by Billy May, Conrad Gozzo, performed by Yma Sumac; "I Want You" by Michael Head, performed by Shack; "Mother of Pearl" by/performed by Bryan Ferry; "Superfinger" by Magnus Uwe Box, Sarah Matthews, Jason Meherin, Paul Russell, performed by Lowfinger; "One Day at the Time" by Mari John Wilkin, Kris Kristofferson, performed by Gloria; "Just When I Needed You the Most" by Randy Vanwarmer, performed by Michael Lynch and Family; "Been Caught Stealing" by Eric Avery, Perry Farrell, Dave Navarro, Stephen Perkins, performed by Jane's Addiction; "Carolan's Draught", "The Floating Crowbar/
The Story of Munster" (trad) arranged/
performed by Arty McGlynn; "O Salutaris Hostia" by Camille Saint-Saëns, performed by the choir of Trinity College Cambridge directed by Richard Marlow; "Bluer than the Blues" by Ray Davies - Sound Recording
- Kieran Horgan
- 2nd Unit Sound Recordist
- Karl Merren
- Re-recording Mixer
- Paul Carr
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Mike Wood
- Dialogue Editor
- Howard Halsall
- ADR
- Editor:
- Nigel Stone
- Foley
- Artists:
- Jason Swanscott
- Diane Greaves
- Felicity Cottrell
- Editor:
- Jupiter Sen
- Chief Stunt Co-ordinator
- Patrick Condren
- Stunt Driving Co-ordinator
- Jim Dowdall
- Armourer
- Joe Condren
- Cast
- Kevin Spacey
- Michael Lynch
- Linda Fiorentino
- Christine Lynch
- Peter Mullan
- Stevie
- Stephen Dillane
- Noel Quigley
- Helen Baxendale
- Lisa
- David Hayman
- Tony Brady
- Patrick Malahide
- Commissioner Daly
- Gerard McSorley
- Harrison
- David Kelly
- Father Grogan
- Gary Lydon
- Tom Rooney
- Paul Ronan
- Billy Lynch
- Colin Farrell
- Alec
- Vincent Regan
- Shay Kirby
- Tim Loane
- Jerome Higgins
- Christoph Waltz
- Peter
- Bill Murphy
- Barry
- Tony Coleman
- Con
- Barry Barnes
- Larry
- Anthony Brophy
- Liam
- Paul Roe
- Luke
- Paul Hickey
- Ger
- Tom Maguire
- Lenny
- Joe Gallagher
- dole office clerk
- Herbert Knaup
- De Heer
- Alan Devlin
- Lord Mayor
- Jer O'Leary
- Padraig Lynch
- Hugh B. O'Brien
- Flintan Doorley
- Gerard Lee
- desk sergeant
- Conor Evans
- Des Braiden
- judges
- Conor Mullen
- McHale
- Enda Oates
- Brian
- Anne Cassin
- news reporter
- Dave Fanning
- radio presenter
- Ann O'Neill
- country shopkeeper
- Jonathan Shankey
- man outside bank
- Bronco McLoughlin
- Mr Harmless
- Angela McLoughlin
- Mrs Harmless
- Tamzin Shaw
- Mrs Hippy
- Ross Dungan
- Tommy Lynch
- Sarah Barrett
- Breda Lynch
- Alex Hayes
- Shane Lynch
- Darragh Mullen
- Eddie
- Maeve de Blacam
- Niamh
- Eva Barrett
- Oonagh
- Mary O'Driscoll
- judge's daughter
- Michael Hayes
- judge's daughter's boyfriend
- Rory Egan
- Leonard Hayden
- Brendan Morrisey
- Sarah Pilkington
- Mario Rosenstock
- journalists
- Certificate
- Distributor
- Icon Film Distribution
- tbc feet
- tbc minutes
- Dolby
- Colour by
- Technicolor, London