To me, this movie is perfection.

Good concept, poorly executed.

Admirable film.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

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.

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.

Ben Kingsley and Ben Cross was hired into playing in this film which is a Sri Lankan action movie made for the foreign market. I'm sad to say that though the plot is good, and this should be a good film, and though the two Bens are doing their job, at lot of other things falter here.The other actors are not good, except perhaps for a couple of the younger guys. Some are almost horrific in their acting. This is the. Ewes reporter, the hacker, the curly policeman running and taking other decisions of his own. Most of the actors are making faces, obviously not trained actors at all, and only the solitude moments with the two Bens are functioning.The amateurish running in the streets are so lame to watch, that after this incident you stop taking the film seriously. A good B-film effort falls short due to incompetence from writer and director. B-film doesn't have to be bad. They are just made with less economic force, and with lesser paid actors. Sometimes we see that A-actors are put in B-films to make them better, or at least more attractive. This was the reason I watched this. So it helps, though you're a bit annoyed. Let's wish the film makers learn from reading reviews.This film is some kind of a remake of "A Wednesday" which is an Indianmobie with the score of 8,2 here on IMDb. If nothing else, this film wants me to watch that as well.

Without question, a new addition to IMDb's "Worst 10 of All Time." Not sure it would be possible to pen a more absurd script..........even far more challenging to collect a more untalented team of supporting actors....no, wait, the script is that horrible.......nothing could be worse.I can only imagine that Ben Kingsley and Ben Cross did the Sri Lanka Movie Industry a favor by agreeing to offer their talents. Unfortunately, if this is the best they can produce, Sri Lanka will NEVER again be able to lure any B-Actor (or C, D, E or F-Level actor for that matter) from Hollywood.I honestly feel that any high school's Performing Arts Department could have created a more interesting story, delivered the dialog better and given some semblance of acting and directing ability. "DON'T quit your day job" is the only advice I could give the people who produced "A Common Man."