Michael Flatley won a 'Best Actor' award for his terribly reviewed film

Michael Flatley, yes the 'Lord of the Dance' and the man behind the international phenomenon Riverdance, has released a spy thriller/action movie which he has directed, produced, financed, written and also starred in and it is getting panned.

The 64-year-old Irish-American star who is better known for his work as a dancer than an actor released Blackbird earlier this week and critics are already calling it one of the "worst films they have ever seen."

The film, which was actually made back in 2018 but has only just been released to the general public, sees Flatley star as Victor Blackley, an ex-secret agent who has fled to the Caribbean to escape his past but then the past catches up with him.

By all means, it's a very cliched premise for a film but it already looks to be well on the way to achieving cult status just because people cannot get enough of bad things.

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Considering how poorly the film has been reviewed by critics (it currently has a 20 per cent score on Rotten Tomatoes) you'll probably be surprised to learn that Flatley won an acting award for his performance in the film.

Somehow, Flatley was gifted the Best Actor gong at the 2021 Monaco Streaming Film Festival of which there is barely any information online about, or who the fellow nominees were. As Irish film critic Brian Lloyd asked on Ireland AM: "Was he up against a cardboard box?"

Still, Flatley doesn't seem to be letting the criticism get to him as he told Ryan Tubridy on RTE's The Late Late Show: "The press have always been good to me...If one or two of them don't like this movie then that's ok with me. I don't read reviews because I don't like negativity."

Flatley also claimed that "we got a two-minute standing ovation (at the premiere)...really nice to see. "There's no shame in failure, there is only shame in not trying."

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