Dirty Deeds Review

Dirty Deeds
A successful Australian gangster in Sydney in the '60s, catches the attention of the Chicago mafia thanks to an influx of US G.I.s on leave from Vietnam.

by William Thomas |
Published on
Release Date:

06 Jun 2003

Running Time:

98 minutes

Certificate:

18

Original Title:

Dirty Deeds

It's a moral dilemma that has enthralled scientists ad infinitum: if you could travel back in time and kill Hitler, would you? Similarly, Empire would be mighty tempted to hop in the old flying DeLorean and journey back to 1998 to forcibly dissuade Guy Ritchie from directing Lock, Stock... Not only because we'd then be spared Swept Away, but we could halt, once and for all, the mindless progeny of Ritchie's stylish gangster flick.

Of which the latest - and arguably most dreadful - is Dirty Deeds, in which a decent cast fumble around in the Aussie outback, swearing and sweating and shooting each other, while director David Caesar favours vertigo-inducing camera moves over little details like a decent script. Australian cinema can scale the heights but, chances are, after this risible embarrassment you won't give a XXXX for anything else it has to offer.

It bounces along at a decent pace, but the lack of a script and misuse of the cast cripple this from the beginning.
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