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.

This is, at times, a very confusing movie. It can be forgiven for that - because clearly it's intended to be. The opening scenes of the movie (a group of illegal immigrants apparently attempting to cross into the US from Mexico) are a bit disorienting. They don't seem to fit with what you expect the movie to be about (I even questioned briefly to myself whether the video store had accidentally packed the wrong movie into the case!) Once it gets going, though, it's compelling.

Basically, the story revolves around the search for the person who assassinated a US Senator, with the prime suspect being a Soviet agent who everyone believed had been killed years before. So - yes - it was an interesting way of bringing back a sort of Cold War theme to a movie made more than 20 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. There are two experts on this Russian agent known as Cassius: CIA agent Shepherdson (Richard Gere) and FBI agent Geary (Topher Grace). They get put together as a team to try to piece the puzzle together. The first twist to the story comes about a half hour through the movie, which leaves you wondering a bit what the point of the movie is, but there's a later twist that was (to me, at least) unexpected. It's pretty well done. Gere and Grace worked pretty well together. I haven't really seen much of Topher Grace since he was the star of "That 70's Show." He's matured a great deal as an actor.

There are some pretty good action scenes in this, but to its credit the movie doesn't go overboard on action. It tends to focus mostly on the relationship between Shepherdson and Geary. It's a pretty decent effort. (7/10)

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.

"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.

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.