Duplicates

I was bought this film by my friend back in 2000. I really didn't know what to make of it at first. At first, the was that the opening credits rolled, it looked a little bit like an average, cheap TV movie, but I was wrong. The plot is pretty original, and the cast are very good. I really thought this movie was something above the others. There was something about the title and the acting, that made the film have a very sinister atmosphere. The only aspect that let it down were the crummy fight scenes, a five-year-old could have done a better job, but i still love it. I would give it 7.5/10

Co-writer/director Sandor Stern's sci-fi thriller has a great Michael Crichton-ish/Body Snatchers idea that is underdeveloped. Gregory Harrison and Kim Greist are parents of a missing boy who stumble across the Sandburg Research Institute where doctors Kevin McCarthy and Cicely Tyson are experimenting with memory transfer. The Institute's objective is to remove the criminal mind and replace it with a less-alienated healthier one, and McCarthy and Tyson have been using the bodies of derelicts and replacing their memories with those dying in hospitals. This doesn't explain how the missing boy has ended up in the Institute's community of new-memoried zombie-bodies, but McCarthy's bad haircut and the standover tactics of Lane Smith as the head of the Institute with undefined government connections and an assassin agenda, clues us into the forces that may stop McCarthy and Tyson from getting the Noble Peace prize. Since the parents provide a perceived threat to the Institute, both Harrison and Greist get the memory makeover, but since they are stupidly accomodated within close proximity to each other, we get a demonstration that the emotion of love does not depend upon the existence of memory, and they are soon at it again. What is attractive about the initial situation is the messy emotions displayed by Greist, and Stern's sense to focus the attention onto her and away from Harrison, who is the weaker actor and who's husband is reduced to a blubbering disbeliever. However after the couple's makeover, Stern errs in reducing Greist's role to that of the passive observor to Harrison's investigator, and by refocusing events on Harrison, Stern undermines his narrative. It's not just that Harrison doesn't possess enough natural charisma to carry a lead role, it's also that the made-over characters are essentially less interesting as people. A better actor than Harrison may have suggested the paranoia inherent in the material, and Stern falls back on Harrison's large forehead to represent his profession as a computer nerd, and also one who has been lobotimized. Perhaps because she realises how silly her role is, Tyson whispers her lines, and the scene where the couple are kidnapped in order to be made-over is handled badly by Stern - as if they offer no resistance to anyone that sticks syringes into their arms.

Up now, this is the best Kim's movie since Brazil: sure it's a cheap production with too much use of good luck but the story is really inventive and gripping: right the start, you understand that there is something unusual with those twins and at the end the project behind was really original: Kim is really great as a wife, mother and sister. A bit like the other Kim (Delaney), American movies seems to be less conventional, boring and hollow with its B movie than with the Hollywood list and blockbusters... Instead of having Schwary killing tons of opponents, you have a neat SciFi theme told about a family: For those who like conspiracy, identity research, new experiments and a true romance, this thriller is really a good pick!

In addition to fellow-commentator Petershelleyau on here, who came up with an amusing summary line, I'd like to point out that it's not exactly people's brains that get replaced in this movie, but their minds rather. DUPLICATES is a very watchable, but nonetheless pretty forgettable early 90's thriller with a sci-fi touch. There's not much action or thrills in this one, but the dramatic story-line hums along at a decent pace. Given the premise of DUPLICATES, it sounds like an intriguing film, but the mystery that should be present throughout a movie like this, isn't really there. You just know what's going on very early in the movie already, and the viewer is always one step ahead of the main characters. The movie does have that typical 'made-for-TV' look and feel, but it's well-made altogether. The leading couple, played by Gregory Harrison and Kim Greist, give fair enough performances in their rolls as Bob and Marion Boxletter, the married couple that gets erased. Good thing about DUPLICATES is that it wastes no time getting the story going. Marion seems to recognize her brother (in the first scene - not counting the opening teaser-scene, featuring a villainous Lane Smith), who had been lost and presumed dead for over a year (together with their 10 year old son). Her brother doesn't recognize her and claims he's someone else. They go on a investigating spree, and soon it's them who find their minds replaced by the ones of two previously deceased strangers.

Naturally, this makes up for a mildly entertaining 90 minutes, but I just would have loved a little more excitement and a more complicated plot (with a tagline like "They steal your family. They steal your mind. They steal you!", one might even falsely assume it's some kind of of predecessor to Schwarzenegger's ERASER or something). It's just all a bit uneventful and too predictable. The 'loss of identity' aspect I liked, but the whole 'love is in the heart and not in the mind'-angle, I could have done without. For a movie that shows similarities to films like THE STEPFORD WIVES and the more recent Koontz' adaptation BLACK RIVER (both superior films in my book), the plot of DUPLICATES could have used a bit more larger scaled conspiracy aspects to make it a bit more complex. But now, it's just about the couple in search for their identity and the truth to the matter. A satisfying, but predictable conclusion wraps it up nicely and makes this movie not much more than a passable time-waster when it comes on TV. It was fun seeing Lane Smith again (known for his memorable role as Nathan Bates in "V" - the series). And given his role in DUPLICATES (as Mr. Fryman, the ill-natured head of the whole science-project) he really feels to me like the 80's equivalent of William B. Davis (who's known for portraying Cigarette Smoking Man in "THE X-FILES"). I've always looked at him like that, for some reason.

Considering the fact that writer/director Sandor Stern was also responsible for the lame THE EVIL ESCAPES-entry in the AMITYVILLE series, DUPLICATES could have been a lot worse. All in all, not bad, but there's more entertaining movies about messing with people's minds out there. I personally had more fun with things like MINDFIELD (1989, starring Michael Ironside) and the total mess that was MINDSTORM (2001, starring both Michael Ironside and William B. Davis). Inferior movies, maybe, but still a bit more fun to watch.

it's Kim Greist that i keep coming back to this film - she perfectly captures the distraught mother - then a woman in the glow of new love when she meets a man that she doesn't know is her husband

and that should tell you what type of scifi this is - its one which focuses on the human drama - it shifts the mystery that begins the story - and scifi elements that cap it off - into the background - at least - for a time

the scifi plot devices - when they are revealed - are pretty silly - they're merely functional in that they provide the motive - and can be tolerated if you think of in that way

formulaic - simplistic - but with Kim Greist to give it some authenticity - and heart