I know right? It was distracting.

I'm not sure if it was poor direction, or just Byrne's interpretation of how Dean Keaton was supposed to act, but the performance was straight out of a paint-by-numbers 'how to act like a tough guy' manual. Just a lot of overkill in how to approached that role
I don't see that at all.

STFU
Byrne was great

I disagree.

I tend to agree with you; he always seems like such a sad sack. I feel like saying to any of the characters he plays, "For goodness sake, buck up."

Agree OP was totally wrong Byrne didn't overact he simply couldn't act his way out of a paper bag, what people see in this guy I don't know, dead tree stump springs to mind!.

lol I don't get this criticism at all. "Overacted" doesn't come to mind at all when I think of Gabriel's performance.
I agree. A ridiculous notion.
My Vote history:
http://www.imdb.com/user/ur1914996/ratings

lol I don't get this criticism at all. "Overacted" doesn't come to mind at all when I think of Gabriel's performance.

You don't think it was the (not necessarily poor) direction? I mean, the audience is supposed to believe this guy could be Keyser Soze. As it turns out, it's just a distorted image Verbal painted of him. The whole story kind of gets "over-the-top" once Soze is introduced, hinting at its deceitfulness.
EDIT: I suspect the OP means the word "clich" rather than "over-acting".

I'm still not thrilled with Byrne's performance but, the theory that this is all part of the narrative crafted by Verbal is an interesting and valid one.

Bear in mind that we're only getting Verbal's description of how Keaton behaved - and he obviously wanted Kujan to believe that Keaton was the boss of the gang, so portraying him as a stereotypical gangster tough guy would help in that respect. Whether Keaton really behaved like that (or even whether Fenster had a speech defect), we'll never really know. Bear in mind that, all through the story that Verbal was telling, Verbal himself walked with a limp - we know that wasn't true - so there might have been no more truth to Keaton's tough guy act than there was to Verbal being a 'cripple'.