Double Take

Director George Gallo penned MIDNIGHT RUN, one of the very best action / buddy-buddy pictures ever to have graced our screens. More than ten years on, and this feels like an ill-advised and incredibly anaemic imitation. The lead characters here are marginally appealing, but as the script races on at breakneck speed and virtually collapses under the number of twists, they are given precious room to develop and engage our sympathies. It all feels so very daft and inconsequential in the final analysis. A time-filler at best, but in the context of MIDNIGHT RUN, also a considerable letdown.

An all around great movie. It was clever in the way Orlando Jones and Eddie Griffith switched characters and the jokes were all solid. There was a lot of depth to the characters that you usually don't get from comedies. A must see. Avoid Undercover Brother! See this instead.

I wasn't expecting a whole lot from this movie. The trailers that I'd remembered seeing were pretty funny, but I'd assumed that those were the best parts of Double Take. Anyway, I watched it nonetheless and didn't think it was half bad. There were several parts not included in the trailer that were laugh-out-loud funny. Some might be offended by the fact that Griffen's character is (in the filmic sense) a "coon." Although nowhere near as good a comedy as Blazing Saddles, it is comparable in certain aspects. Double Take could be considered racist, but like Blazing Saddles, it uses racial stereotypes to emphasize the stupidity of their existence. Here, instead of black vs. white, we see upper-class African-Americans ashamed of the Sambo stereotype, and thus not associating with other African-Americans with lower social status. I'm not sure if this message was intentional in Double Take, but it was there nonetheless. Orlando Jones had a pretty good performance and Griffen was a convincing character (some might say he was over-the-top, but again I'd say this was essential). One problem was that the movie quite suddenly switched gears from a comedy to a somewhat serious action/suspense flick. I felt the heavy emphasis upon the latter took away from its comic moral message and made the movie shallower. So, it had potential. They could have recruited a few more writers to add in funnier jokes. All in all, a 6 out of 10.

What it is jive turkey?!

I don't think I've ever seen a movie that could include so many different film genres in a little less than 1 hour and 30 minutes. It has humor, action, a little drama, and with all those emus.horror (not to mention the freaky guy with the marble for an eye). Personally, even though the movie got confusing at times, I liked this movie (with the exception of the fact I went with a friend who laughed through just about the whole thing and made me miss ¼ of the dialogue). I guess being a younger person I caught a lot of the stuff that some adults just didn't get. In the end the whole movie made sense to me, to a lot of other people it didn't, it was just funny. Any ways, since this is a review it looks like I better summarize what the whole thing is about for you:

The movie's main characters are two guys that are like night and day and pretty much seem to dislike each other through most of the movie. First there's Daryl Chase, played by Orlando Jones (yes, that's the guy in the 7-Up commercials, OMG, who will be playing a drag queen named Miss Coco in an upcoming movie!), the sophisticated `good-looking' (as you can see, that's not my personal opinion, I just picked it up from another review) Harvard graduate who is a New York investment banker. Second you have Freddy Tiffany, played by Eddie Griffin (he stars is Master P's `Foolish', yeah, you can call me a fool but you can't fool me. You know that song.maybe.), who is a fast-talking street hustler with a mess of hair and a gold chain and oh.how can we forget his dog Delores (played by Willow Stars). Like I said before, they have basically nothing in common. Well blah de blah (I can't tell you the whole thing) they meet each other under weird circumstances then Daryl finds himself is big trouble because he is framed for something and soon he and Freddy switch places and head off to the wonderful place called Mexico. Needless to say many weird and strange things happen on their way to Mexico and even when they get there. We even get to see a smelly emu ranch called `El Emu Ranch' which has a 20-foot emu structure. After all this happens you may be confused or this all might make total sense to you, it depends on you.

Out of a 10 I give this movie a 9. It was confusing and will be confusing to many people which is why I took a point off because I personally found it VERY amusing. It's not every day you see a sophisticated, well educated guy using some type of ghetto voice shouting about how there's `no Schiltz malt 'licka', right? Or we can't forget the adorable and funny dog Delores who's right up there with the adorable dog from `As Good As It Gets' but I forgot that dog's name. Then there's all those funny lines which I won't share, you can find out for yourself, because most of them aren't in any of the previews. ANY WAYS, this pretty much concludes my review of `Double Take', I will end it with a somewhat simple question to you.WTF is a jive turkey?!

Double Take is a great movie. I laughed a lot and had a great time in the theater. Eddie Griffen and Orlando Jones both gave excellent performances as did the rest of the cast. The storyline was cool and I liked the plot twists a lot. The trailer made the story seem way different, so you were surprised and I like that. All in all, the movie did it's job. It gets a 10 from me.