Film blog

He's been both ridiculed and lambasted by chin-stroking beret wearers as all that's bad about the type of British cinema that's strutted its stuff ever since Guy "working class" Ritchie had it large with Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

The Observer's Philip French dismisses the Canning Town boy-made-bad as a player "whose name currently goes with screen violence the way straw goes with dogs", whilst Time Out describes his acting default as "irritating Cockney joker."

Well, maybe so. But isn't that why British cinema needs Danny Dyer? Who else is so effortlessly light on their plates of meat when it comes to yobbishly delivering profanity-laced invective, getting into rucks or playing the sexist berk tellin' some slapper to shut it.

Since he first burst onto the small screen back in 1993 as a rent boy in Prime Suspect he has worked constantly – and unapologetically – in an industry that sneers at laddishness and would probably blackball his BAFTA application, yet is quite happy to trouser the moolah.

Because, like it or not, Dyer must be one of the most successful actors working (he's got no less than ten films in production or about to be released) and – more impressively – he has always played to his (albeit limited) strengths... and all without the benefit of a drama school education.

OK, he's portrayed more than his fair share of unredeemable thugs – Gene Dekker opposite Sean Bean's vicious squaddie in the unpleasant revenge drama Outlaw or the coke-hoovering wannabe Frankie in the Costa del Crime drama The Business. But he's also brought a welcome spark of self-parodic macho humour to the likes of underrated comedy-horror Severance, geezers-meet-zombirds bad taste fest Doghouse and made an impressive debut in the drama Human Traffic.

What's more... he doesn't care. Never one to pretend to be someone he isn't (not the sort of thing you could say about 99% of the luvvie fraternity asked to babble about global warming) the seemingly serene father-of-two quite happily fronts TV trash-fest Danny Dyer's Deadliest Men, writes a ribald column for Nuts magazine and provided the voice of Kent Paul in the dubious video games Grand Theft Auto Vice City and San Andreas.

Yet, he is no stranger to more culturally acceptable artistic endeavours. He appeared in the late Harold Pinter's Celebration in both London and New York and also played Foster in the revival of No Man's Land at London's National Theatre. Recently, an inspired piece of casting saw him perfecting his punk sneer as Sid Vicious in the new work Kurt and Sid.

This week he unsurprisingly fails to veer far from type as potty-mouthed Bing opposite Steven Seagal clone Tamer Hassan in the geezer caper Dead Man Running. Dyer's motto simply appears to be, if it ain't broke don't fix it.

"I know a lot of people have got a lot of hate towards me, people saying he's just the same thing, he's not a proper actor," Dyer said recently.

Not us, mate.