Misión secreta

we cannot call a thriller as thriller if all the ingredients of the recipe is exposed right in front of your eyes within 5 minutes running. we cannot call a mystery a mystery if the 'whodoneit' is already so obviously shown from the early stage of a story. using often with the flash-backs to explain what happened years ago also won't help a transition of the plot but only shows the limit of a screenplay and its director. one of the worse thing is a so-called movie thriller is implementing the constant non-stop sound track to support the tension of a suppose-to-be-suspenseful movie, by the annoying endless non-stop drumming dong, dong, dong to set the tempo but in the meantime blocking the clearance of all the dialog is another stupid arrangement of this movie. no matter how you tried your best to make sudden twists later in the plot or the scenario, it's just rubbish and crap, only horror movies or brain-dead farces that claimed themselves as 'COMEDY' do not need logic. i've also found out that recently more and more lousy screenplays been proved into production (not just Hollywood) and this one in particular, is a living proof of what i'm saying here. i just don't understand why nobody in the production of this movie, including the director never pointed out the absolutely unacceptable flaws and holes of this shitty screenplay. richard gere should have used his influence to point out to the production people what would not work, what should be more logic of this screenplay, otherwise, the movie would also damage his own image. if i were him, i would not and could not perform well if the screenplay so obviously stupidly ridiculous. but maybe it explains why he could be an actor and i not.

this is a horrible movie. avoid as best as you can.

"The Double," is a taut spy-thriller with echoes of the Cold War and "The Day of the Jackal." It's not easy to speak about the plot without pooping the film's surprises but let's just say that everything's different from what it appears and no one is who he seems to be (that's where the film's title comes from). I've read reviews describing the film as confusing and too complicated but in my opinion these comments are ungenerous. "The Double" shows an instantaneous reassessment of what the viewer has seen. In that sense there's a mind-twisting satisfaction in the plot. Gere is great as an entertainingly minimal actor but he's always very convincing. Here he gives weariness to a character who had seen and done too much. "The Double" is one of those dark stories where every turn seems to be a turn for the worse. To sum up it's definitely worth a look.

This isn't your thinking man spy movie. Here it relies more on action and some surprises.And some nice surprises I might add. It has a nice pace and it will entertain more than enough. But it could have been so much better. The most essential thing that "The Double" lacks is proper build up.One of the surprises is revealed much too quickly which for me spoiled lot of the fun too early on.It is fair to say that I did lose a little interest.Although I did suspect that the director must have a good reason to do so if he was that confident. And while there were reasons (plot wise) I still think this reveal was a bad idea.In my opinion one should always try to keep the viewer in suspense until it has served it's purpose. And in this case it only would have benefited the story more if it did.Especially with the average action scenes and lack of characterization and drama. One tip though which is something I have learned to accept. Avoid watching trailers,at least when it comes to movies that rely on suspense and twists.Long gone are the days that a trailer is made to tease and draw you to a movie without revealing anything. I don't know what it is with these people making them. But to spoil a movie before someone has watched is always a bad idea.Honestly sometimes you just have to watch a trailer to know exactly what is going to happen.What would be the point to watch the full movie? So as I understand one twist is revealed in the trailer.Which I luckily did not see. Otherwise I might have not even watched this. Overall this is a decent and entertaining production for which you have to keep expectations low on all levels in order to enjoy it.

Typical action movie lovers will find this film very satisfying. It's got attractive lead characters, guns, car chases, lots of cold-blooded murder and a supposedly world-class villain with a twist.

The truth is, it's not really my cup of tea -- I look for more emotional drama or educational/meaningful content ideally -- but my three action-loving companions all gave this one thumbs-up, and that's all the average action-lover will need to know.

Having said that, the screenplay gives the impression of a plot that could have been executed with more depth but for the time considerations of a movie, which force producers to gloss over too many interesting issues. Thus the whole production became superficial, with Richard Gere delivering a disappointing performance. I didn't feel the depth of the character that would have raised Gere's performance to a level I think we always hope for from him but never really get. In addition, Topher Grace and Odette Annable are the too-perfect, too-pretty, 2-dimensional couple that are a bit hard to swallow.

Although there were a couple of interesting twists in the plot, they weren't developed enough to raise the level of this film to a must-see, and pretty much every other part of the screenplay was as superficial as your run-of-the-mill action movie.

A retired CIA operative (Richard Gere) is paired with a young FBI agent (Topher Grace) to unravel the mystery of a senator's murder, with all signs pointing to a Soviet assassin.

On top of the great casting of the leads, you also have Martin Sheen being as dignified as ever and Odette Yustman having a smaller, but important role. All around, the casting was just spot on.

What is great about this film is that the words "action star" rarely come up when talking about Grace or Gere, but both have a high level of anger, energy and violence in this flick. I think it marks a great expansion in both of their ranges.

I saw a review that said the film should allow us to "think" more. And yes, one of the key twists is given away far too early in the film. But I think this exposition is warranted, given the bigger twist that comes up later on... and ultimately leads to a chilling ending if you think about what will happen after the credits roll (I am being vague here to not give anything away). I hear (but do not know) that the first twist was even revealed in the trailer. Okay, that was a little too early.

Ebert is surprisingly nice to this movie compared to the average viewer. He says, "Here is a movie constructed from basic parts at the Used Screenplay Store, with a character plugged in whenever one is required." But then he goes and gives the film two stars out of four -- not a terrible rating. He also says the writers had a better film when they wrote "3:10 to Yuma", and that is certainly true.

I want to give this film a second viewing... I did not understand at first about the Russians in Mexico. And now that I do, I want to see the scene again... hmmm. Looks like the film hooked me.