Review of A Common Man (2013) by Tim C — 04 Dec 2013

Hoping that his Indian Ocean island nation of Sri Lanka might one day be another international motion picture hub, director Chandran Rutnam wanted to bring prestige to his pic by casting Oscar-winning actor Ben Kingsley as the film's central character -- a disillusioned "common man" who has become a terrorist in defiance of what his world is turning into.

Kingsley's character plants five bombs throughout the streets of Colombo and alerts the authorities of the possible high-casualty disaster. Kingsley will call off his attack IF the Chief of Police (Ben Cross - Chariots of Fire) and the Sri Lankan government release four notorious criminals/terrorists and let them fly away to safety at a secret location.

In order to ensure the police play the hand they are dealt, a novice reporter is tasked with reporting live to the residents of the city whenever the "common man" decides to let them in on some information.

The reporter and the bomb squads trek all over the city as tension is supposed to build. While A Common Man has an interesting premise -- it was adapted from a Bollywood film called A Wednesday -- it is nearly impossible to enjoy unless the audience gets a glimpse of either Kingsley or Cross as the rest of the "acting" -- yes, I am putting it in quotation marks! -- is atrocious! There are no words to describe the lack of talent onscreen in A Common Man.

While I do not recommend seeing the film for its story, I might have to tell people to try to make it through some of the movie to witness some of its sheer awfulness. It is too bad the actors weren't at least "common".