michael caine is well known for accepting every sh**job that comes along. he´s in it for the money and he freely admits that. his recent films include plenty of stinkers (e.g. SHADOW RUN) so it´s quite refreshing to see him in a decent crime flick which allows him once more to show the wide span of his talents. SHINER is not a masterpiece, it´s a typical revenge story a la GET CARTER. this is a michael caine solo. all the other actors hardly have a space to breathe, caine just pushes them aside like the giant steamtrain he is. only the great martin landau can somehow compete with him, the others, frank harper (LOCK STOCK...) and andy serkis ( gollum from LORD OF THE RINGS, hihihi) do a good job but can´t keep up. all in all a very nice way to spend some time but I´d rather watch SEXY BEAST.
