The Double

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.

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 plot of this movie has room for a decent spy thriller, but it fell short. Uninspired acting and a script not worthy of inspiration leaves the characters flat and unrelatable. The two leads spend very little time actually on screen together, and there is no chemistry when they are. At one point, some information comes to light which seems like a game changer, but it is quickly swept under the rug and ignored, as it has no impact on what happens next, while it could have been actually interesting. In the end, you won't care about the characters at all, and so anything that happens won't interest you. I advise you to look elsewhere and to not come back.

Richard Gere plays "Paul Shepherdson," a decorated CIA veteran who is just pulled out of retirement & teamed up with new & upcoming agent, Ben Geary (Topher Grace) to find the truth about the Russian assassin "Cassius," who Shepherdson claimed to have killed years before. The intel says he lives & is now in the US. The movie follows the duo as the real truth of the matter comes closer, and things are not always as they seem, not like we haven't heard that line before in countless intelligence genre films. It just failed to deliver surprise as very early we are bombarded with hints as to who's who. All the elements where there, great actors & production but the script wasn't as brilliant as it could have been. They could have played out an extraordinary cat & mouse game if things in the script were changed. I did enjoy watching this and I give a 7/10 generously as I'm a fan of both Grace & Gere.

Also I would recommend a watch at least on the web, cause the ad campaign failed so horribly in marketing the film, maybe they could at least go VOD or STV cause it really deserves more.

for a lower budget, almost straight to DVD movie i can't really complain. I avoid a lot of straight to DVD titles, but with richard and topher on the cover at my local redbox, i thought i would give it a chance. The movie is actually put together pretty well, and looks like it could have been released in theaters fully. about 1/4 through the movie, i couldn't believe they would give the story away, but surprisingly there are a few twists that i completely did not see coming. The cast was pretty good, and the acting was not bad at all. I definitely recommend this movie if you need to kill 90 mins Story - 7.5 Acting -8 look and feel of the movie - 7.5-8 Ending - 7.5-8