Double Whammy

I was reading through the comments about this movie and could not figure out why people were badmouthing it the way they were. I remembered this movie to be quite good and wanted to refresh my memory so I went out and rented it again. After seeing it a second time, I went ahead and purchased it.

This is a very funny movie with some witty acting and a great indie style. I think most of the people here that are rating this movie so poorly must be looking for the standard Hollywood blockbuster, made with tons of money and only ounces of heart. If that's what you want, go rent Gladiator or the Matrix (both of which I loved as well). But if you are really into films themselves and not just high dollar special effects, then go out and rent this fun and humorous picture.

This has all the ingredients of a good bad imitation Quentin Tarantino movie. The recipe goes something like this. You first have a crummy urban setting with lots of vulgar characters. You add a plot that richochets meaninglessly from one scene to another. If one of the scenes has something to do with hamburgers, so much the better. Organize the scenes so that a handful of different sets of characters inhabits each. Make sure the characters dress oddly or are otherwise groomed distinctively. (Marcellus had a bandaid on the back of his neck, so you can have one of the characters wear a rather larger bandage on his neck too, if you like.) Give the dialogue a quirky cast. Have a conversational exchange irrelevant to the plot -- if not about Quarter Pounders, then about why it is that girls can say things to other girls like, "Hey, guys, let's get out of here," and about why it is that girls can call other girls "guys," but guys can't call each other "girls." Mix in characters of different races and ethnic background. Organize the sets of characters into what we call in haute cuisine "subplots." The characters in each "subplot" should meet each other from time to time. Add as much violence as you want, being certain that although it is rendered realistically on screen it is treated matter-of-factly by your characters. Garnish with jokes. Serve tepid.

Tarantino's movies can be immensely enjoyable because you know while you're watching them that you're seeing originals. Nobody did quite what he did before he did it. But Tarantino's work bears the same relationship to "Double Whammy" as Bernard Buffet's work does to those acrylic paintings you see on motel walls -- hasty sketches of sailing ships with a thousand drooping stays and shrouds.

I'll briefly mention the "subplots" here. Steve Buscemi is worried because he once glanced at the hero's a** and is afraid he's becoming gay. Two weird dudes, one of them trying desperately to ape his black partner in manner and speech, are "mega-ultra-realist" screenwriters who must enact every episode from their developing opus. Elizabeth Hurley is a chiropractor recommended by Buscemi to the hero, Leary, as someone who can cure Leary's bad back, which unfortunately prevented him from stopping a mass murderer in a burger shop. (You see how the "subplots" overlap a bit, like the circles in a Venn diagram?)

None of this movie is believable in the slightest, but perhaps the least believable incident of all involves Leary picking up the phone and calling his new girl friend, Hurley. Hurley has spent the previous night working on Leary's back and other anatomical parts. For no perceptible reason, he tells this drop-dead gorgeous feral creature with those infinitely deep blue eyes and that sluttish lisp that, "I've thought things over and I don't think we should see each other anymore. I'm just not ready for this." Half the men on the planet are ready for this, if he's not.

Hurley, Buscemi, and Guzman give us the best performances. Chris Noth is interesting too. It's surprising how, with his black hair slicked back and gelled, draped in an expensive-looking wardrobe that is too flashy for most tastes, he looks and acts like a villain. He'd make a pretty good heavy, actually, now that he's getting lumpier. An easy actor to watch. Guzman occupies some of the same territory; a striking physical presence whose valence could lean in either direction.

The art direction is pretty good. The settings are supposed to look sleazy and they do. And the score is cute. What we hear behind the credits sounds a little like The Saxophone Quartet.

But that's not enough to make up for the rest of the movie. In a way it's kind of an embarrassment to watch, like DePalma's rip offs of Hitchcock. It's a creepy feeling to watch people degrade any talents they might have for the sake of a few bucks, although, God knows, we don't always realize what the outcome is going to look like.

Anyway, it's a waste of time.

Just saw the film and I enjoyed how the layers were pulled back one at a time, until all the links were shown. I originally thought the unique characters of Cletis and Duke were there just to add flavor, but then they turned out to be more vital. And the understated approach of not stating outright that Jo Jo and Ping Pong were being hired to kill "Papi" left me feeling that the movie did not take our intelligence for granted, but assumed that the viewer is smart enough to figure it out. Denis Leary is funny, but I liked the supporting cast just as much. Without them, this funny comedy would have been pretty flat.

Oh, and what is with Duke looking and sounding like Vanilla Ice?? Even to the shaved eyebrows and the slicked up hair :)

It's such a strange combination what DiCillo shows in "Double Whammy". On the one hand we got this cop whose wife and daughter have died in an accident, also he's getting through some difficulties in his job (as you can see, everything looks so dramatic). But on the other we got a series of bizarre characters and a lot of hilarious dialogs. That way the dramatic side of "Double whammy" loses all its strength... It works much better as a comedy, but the movie is kind of irregular anyhow and the style of DiCilo behind the camera is rather ordinary (it looks like a 80's picture).

Barely entertaining...

*My rate: 5/10

Denis Leary plays Raymond Pluto, a detective fallen from grace after his bad back causes him to fail preventing a fast-food shooting. Worse yet, a nerdy seven-year old kid saves the day. Now Pluto, along with his partner (Buscemi) and his chiropractor(Hurley), is searching for redemption. And, with the help of a pair of inept screenwriters and some unscrupulous gang members, Pluto may save the day yet...or die trying. The unique cast works towards the film's strengths, as do the wry comedy, but the film's obvious low budget hinders it from achieving it's obvious potential. Still, it's a lot more enjoyable than most of the mainstream stuff that Hollywood is trying to pass off as entertainment these days. Buscemi steals every scene he's in as he reveals problems with his sexual identity.