This Australian import tries hard to achieve the cool, off-beam sensibility of Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels but, instead - and despite creditable performances - winds up a jarring melange of mismatched styles and iffy plotting. With a vague nod towards The Long Good Friday, Dirty Deeds follows the travails of a Sydney crime boss (Bryan Brown) as he attempts to ward off the Chicago Mafia (in the corpulent shape of John Goodman) who are in town to muscle in on his slot-machine racket. Director David Caesar's uncertain direction and hectic editing obscure the film's strengths, particularly the performances of the always entertaining Brown and Goodman. But the parochial atmosphere of 1960s Sydney - where asking for pizza elicits a blank stare - is moderately well evoked and there is clever signposting of the imminent invasion of American culture.

Set in 1960s Sydney, this is the story of an Australian gangster whose booming business, buoyed by the influx of U.S. soldiers in town for R&R during their tours in Vietnam, attracts the attention of first the Chicago mafia, and then their East Coast competitors.