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.

This movie sucks so bad that my eyes couldn't believe!. I mean, come on!, the whole movie was filled with clichés like the tough guy wearing sunglasses (even in the dark) and fist fights so poorly acted. Sir Kingsley, I hope you are reading this and if so, you owe me one and a half hours of my life...and i want them back!. BTW, the way they speak through the entire movie reminded me of those English dubbed Chinese movies.It's very difficult to understand how a man who played such a profound role like Gandhi can perform such a terrible movie like this one. Overall, worst movie ever...and Mr. Kingsley, i mean it, i want my wasted time back!

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.

It's a mix between a Bruce Lee knock off and Chips. Awful, but will make you laugh for about 30 seconds if you can give it that long. I give it a 2 because there is some amusement in the dubbing. Seeing Ben Kingsley at the beginning suggests that there will be some sort of tension, setting up the film for something good. Sadly, it does not happen. I am pretty sure that the police chief was Spocks father in the most recent Star Trek film, seeing him also gave me some hope for the film, again..nope. Ultimately, not sure what the plot twist is. Can't watch the whole thing. Wish I didn't have to write 10 lines to get this review posted as Chips and Bruce Lee knock off really would sum it up for most folks.