Double X: The Name of the Game

Norman Wisdom's swan song. Playing it straight and badly to be fair . The "brains" behind a major London gang of criminals. He wants out. Sadly he won't get to leave.

The films low production values and poor acting and atrocious script make it worth watching for all the wrong reasons

You probably thought every film Norman Wisdom ever made had been on TV at least a dozen times in the past five years. But his personal favourite of his own films was an independent production in which he played a safecracker trying to go straight called 'There Was a Crooked Man' which flopped in 1960 and which problems over rights have kept off TV screens for over fifty years.

Shot at Bray Studios and in Scotland, parts of 'Double X' resemble a semi-remake of the earlier film; although in 1960 Wisdom would have played a character called Norman rather than Arthur, and Robert Asher would have breezed through it in about half the time. A serviceable cast (including Bernard Hill camping it up in the role Garry Marsh would have played in the fifties) disappear and then reappear throughout this tinny, talky film which looks and sounds as if it was shot on a camcorder by film students; and is more dated after less than thirty years than the earlier film probably is after over sixty.

For some reason, the director remade the not very good to begin with short film 'Vengeance' almost exactly, then expanded it with a lot of gangster hokum. Throw in Norman Wisdom playing it straight (as if guest starring in The Bill), an overheated plot like a teetering Jenga stack of cliches, and on first viewing you have the kind of stinker that negated the very idea of a British film. Having seen it multiple times, however, it's virtues become apparent - top of the list being Bernard Hill, having fun as the villainous Iggy. Every actor here seems to be acting in a different film of their own. There's an ever shifting inconsistency of tone throughout - like it was written in total seriousness but the absurdity of the material made it impossible for the cast to play it straight. In fact I think most of it was made up on the spot. It's not sleazy or violent enough to be a trash classic, but is still far better and more credible than anything Guy Ritchie ever did.

"Iggy fronted the organisation but the brains behind it was a man called Edward Ross - cold, calculating and totally ruthless."

At times, "Double X" is so inept and clumsy that it looks like a 10-year-old's concept of a gangster thriller. In "The Long Good Friday", you believed in the organisation headed by Bob Hoskins' superbly frightening Harold Shand - by contrast, Simon Ward's bunch look like a set of kids playing at being criminals. The idea that a man whose criminal empire seems to encompass a dozen people and a small nightclub is planning to build new cities across the world is as ludicrous and overblown as the film's pretensions.

On the credit side, "Double X" manages a neat twist two-thirds of the way through as well as a couple of good performances - Chloë Annett as Sarah takes the film more seriously than it deserves whilst Bernard Hill has lots of fun as the limping and sardonic Iggy. But the photography is strangely drab despite some nice locations and the soundtrack is awful. The makers should check out Ian David Diaz's excellent "The Killing Zone" for an example of how to make this type of film.

Finally, watch out for the scene where Norman Wisdom slaps his double-crossing lover Gemma Craven. This has to be the wimpiest, most laughable "slap" in motion picture history! The fact that the director didn't ask for a retake sums up the problems with "Double X".

O.k. i watched the film last week because lots of people said it was a terrible film and i like bad films plus i like norman wisdom and was looking forward to seeing him play a diffrent style of role than he usually plays. Wisdom plays a gangster, well a safecracker in a gang he is sort of the brains behind the operation a mild mannered quiet fellow who hasent got quite the sort of mean spirit the rest of the gang have. So the story is this, a man visiting scotland from chicago who was a policeman meets wisdom in a empty hotel restraunt, he chats to him and is interested in him somewhat (we find out why later, i dont want to give it away but it is a nice twist). Anyway wisdom is acting edgy and after the fella buts into wisdoms business wisdom takes him hostage and orders him to drive wisdom to the ferryport, while driving wisdom tells the man his story, how wisdom was a safecracker for a gang but felt they were going to kill him after his next job so he sort of set the gang up (more on that later) and ran away from the gang but not before they kidnapped his daughter hilariously tying her up and putting her in a "silence of the lambs" style dungeon conveniantly put in the basement of a club the gang member owns. So wisdom has escaped the gang but they are after him, so he has to form a unlikely truce with the american so wisdom can escape to safety but things dont exactly turn out as planned. Thats all i really can tell you as the twist about halfway through is best kept for you to watch for yourself. Now for the film itself, wisdom puts in a tired performance to be honest, if you want to see him tackle a serious role watch "going gently" or if you want to see him in a diffrent light to his usual films watch "whats good for the goose" thats a great film as its sort of a naughty sex comedy quite diffrent to wisdoms usual style of film. I think because of wisdoms previous slapstick films it can be at times difficult to take him seriously, there were numerous parts in the film where i was half expecting him to shout "MR GRIMSDALE" and fall down a set of stairs but unfortunatly it didnt happen, he was quite old in this film and im afraid it shows, theres a part in the film where he has to slap a woman and its such a feeble slap im surprized they didnt reshoot it. As for the other actors in the film the always good "bernard hill" (yosser hill from boys from the blackstuff) plays a gangster called ignatious "iggy" smith and he is a shining example of how a actor should play that sort of role, im serious his performance really makes the film so so SO good, he maniacally chews his way through every scene and is a joy to watch, he is a disabled gangster with a bad leg (ha) so bad is his leg all someone had to do when confronted by him in a scene was to push him over and he was lifeless as a darlek, he has all the good lines here whether throwing his boss out of a helicopter or taking part in hilarious slow motion gun fight in a warehouse where his bad leg seems to hilariously get better he is phenomenal in the role. Chloe annett sleep walks through her role, as do most of the actors and i think thats the main problem here because apart from bernard hill and norman wisdom (for the time he is in the film) the other actors and actresses just dont do much. So its a watchable film, but it whould have been a lot better off as a 2 part crime thriller on bbc or itv, thats the level we are at here people, a highlight for me was a ridiculously english drive by shooting where the gunmen open fire on 2 men from a bargeboat on a english river !!!!. If you do like the film another film to check out is the hilarious chris twemlow masterpiece (cough cough) the 1983 film that is g.b.h. that film is the bees knees and makes this film look like citizen kane, you have been warned.