Despite having Kevin Spacey, Linda Fiorentino and Colin Farrell in the cast, "Ordinary Decent Criminal" was never released in theaters. Frankly, one wonders how Miramax can release it on home video given the possible lawsuit it could spawn. Both this and "The General" are based on the legendary exploits of Martin Cahill. The difference between the two is that in "The General," Martin Cahill is actually Martin Cahill and in this film, he's called Michael Lynch (Kevin Spacey). They're both criminal masterminds and certain events happen in both films scene-for-scene.

Here, Lynch is also married to two women: Christine (Linda Fiorentino) and her sister, Lisa (Helen Baxendale). He also pulls the trick where he leads the tailing cops out to the middle of nowhere until they run out of gas and he refills his tank from a portable gas tank in the trunk. Both films feature their criminal mastermind stealing art.

Perhaps this is another example of two films getting made at the same time and the idiot-producers of this film had already spent so much money on actors and whatever that they had to go ahead and finish. Who knows? What I do know is that watching this film after having already seen "The General" was entirely a waste of time.