Double Bang

A really fun edge-of-your-seat thriller made even more engaging by some awesome performances. The guy who plays the villain (who i think has a tv series this fall) is a star and several other smaller roles are played to perfection (like the mafia boss). Definitely worth a night at home on the couch.

This movie comes nicely packaged with a particularly fine cast, superb production design and a wonderful jazz score. It's actually a convincing take on the methodologies behind both criminal and law-enforcement corruption. While it's not an original concept, it's one well handled here, with an adult sensibility and emotional honesty that makes it worthwhile viewing. Jon Seda shines.

"Double Bang" is a B-flick now buried in channel clutter on cable. The film has the usual cop flick ingredients including a good cop, a bad cop, a babe, some heavies, drugs, murder, yadayadayada. Although the story is nothing new, the flick dose manage to muster a kind of personality...a sort of likability as it doesn't take itself too seriously, doesn't always do what's expected, passes on opportunities to titillate, and the bad guy laughs all the way to the grave. An okay watch for channel surfers into crime flicks if expectations are kept within reason. (C)

Certainly a fun film. A bit silly at points, and guilty of the "big co-incidence," but much of the dialog is very good. Jon Seda has the best lines, and is wonderful, and Elizabeth Mitchell spends the whole movie with her eyes half closed in a very enticing way. Baldwin is kinda the straight man throughout, but he does a good job of it.

Direct to video faster than a speeding cliche, "Double Bang" lumbers along its inevitable, well-worn path with an equal measure of indignation and gratuitous foreplay for what must have been its intended audience- Japanese recluses of WWII who stumbled out of the jungle- unfamiliar with this beaten beyond recognition convoluted plot structure. The film reeks suspiciously as being a "deal-slammer", employment contracts are satisfied as long as 90-minutes of old-hat noir goulash is smeared across the small-screen. The cast, especially the reliable Baldwins, radiate a smugness that neither appeals, or convinces. This tale was stale when Charles Ogle was headlining around America in the 1910 version of "Frankenstein". Hard to imagine less "bang" for your video store buck.