Deuces

(2002) The Duplicate/ Deuces SCIENCE-FICTION/ HORROR

Straight to rental and low budget co-produced, written and directed by Michael Winnick that has female reporter, Karen Addams (Tiffany Paige) discovering a room that has the ability create another evil alter ego, after interviewing a man whose supposed to be dead, who of course is going to create a duplicate of herself, and is planing on a take over- there's supposed to be another surprise revelation regarding 'the duplicate room', but to low effect. Great looking poster but as soon as you watch it, then it becomes extremely forgettable because of very poor performances and it's low budget constraints.

I was actually in pain while watching this movie. It made little sense, and the acting was not by any means good. How it got a 4.2 rating is beyond me. I thought that it would be good judging by the cover. I soon found out that they spent all their money on the cover and therefore couldn't have a decent script. Thats makes about as much sense as the rest of the movie ie. none. Avoid at all costs!! 0 out of 4 stars. I would rather sit though a Power Rangers/Gigli/Glitter movie fest for the rest of my life than see this movie again.

The problem with this film, it seems to me, is the story. An earlier poster mentioned genre problems, and I think he or she hit the nail right on the head. If you're going to do science fiction (or horror, or mystery, or western, or what have you), you need to know something about the genre. Lip service needs to be paid to the hows and whys. Fantasy doesn't have to be realistic, exactly, but if things work differently in the film world from how they work in our world, we need some kind of explanation. Omitting details like this--at least lip service to them--is dangerous and sloppy.

That said, there's a lot to like in this film. The public location work is good, and the camera work is generally unobtrusive but occasionally impressive. The dialogue is quite good, suggesting that the director/writer has some skill in this area (I'd recommend help with the story itself in future projects though). Some of the acting was very good.

Budgetwise, the producers did a lot with a little, and the next effort might be a breakthrough. This one isn't it, and unfortunately it's the story that gets in the way ... and that's the one thing that's got to be there.

In Los Angeles, the journalist Karen Addams (Tiffany L. Paige) is investigating a mysterious case happened twenty years ago, when the owner of the Mansfield Theater, Kyle Mansfield (Harold Cannon), shot twice with a shotgun, killed his dog, and he was found covered of his own blood, but without any injure. She convinces her editor to have an interview with Kyle, who is bankrupted. Kyle gives a key of a room to her and says that he is the watcher of the place. Karen decides to open the door, and sooner she finds that somebody is using her identity, efficiently working for her and living at her place. She is promoted in her job when the criminal Greg Johnson (Trey Hardy) is arrested with her apparent support, but she claims she had never seen him before. When Greg meets her, she realizes that apparently they have been duplicated, and their evil doubles have opposite personalities.

"Deuces" is a low budget movie with very promising story that keeps the attention with the duplication mystery but the development is weak and the conclusion is a great deception. When the mystery is disclosed, the explanation is very silly; when the doubles are eliminated, the resolution is simply corny and conventional. I regret that the director / author has been so commercial and careless with the conclusion of his screenplay, otherwise "Deuces" could have been a great film. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Dublê do Medo" ("Double of the Fear")

First of all, it's hard to define in which genre (horror, sci-fi, thriller?) we could insert 'Deuces', because the movie worked all the time with some elements of all these kind of movies but with an absolute incompetence. The story of a woman who suddenly discover that she has a double, a twin 'persona', living by her side and doing odd things - including violent acts and even murder - is not a novelty. In fact, you must remember 'Doppelganger', with Drew Barrymore, another bad movie with the same theme. And that is all the story here, punctuated with some not gripping moments of shooting, cold blood murders and eerie scenes, especially the scenes taken at the Mansfield theater, the place where the doubles seems to appear after twenty years of interval. It's very difficult to be awaken during the movie, because you'll find that the problem here is not just a problem that affects the lady in distress, the journalist Karen Adams (played with a wood faced performance by Tiffany Paige. The movie tells us a story about an evil double creature with double boring style. A complete waste of time.