The Double

The Double - Dir. Michael Brandt (2011)

The Double marks the directorial debut of screenwriter Michael Brandt, who has co-written 2 Fast 2 Furious, 3:10 to Yuma and Wanted with his writing partner Derek Haas. Together they have crafted a spy thriller inspired by Robert Ludlum and Tom Clancy as well as classic flicks like 3 Days of the Condor. The Double has languished in development hell for over a decade and was previously acquired by troubled MGM. You'd think the script had been around even longer considering the main antagonists are Russian agents. Yet, the idea of Cold War remnants infiltrating American society isn't too farfetched considering the 2010 arrest of a Russian spy ring, which included the real-life Black Widow, Anna Chapman. Sadly, there are no redheaded femme fatales in The Double, just Richard Gere and Topher Grace.

It begins with the murder of a United States senator, whose throat was slit by a garrote wire. This method of death was the trademark for a Russian assassin code-named Cassius, long thought to be dead. CIA Agent Paul Shepherdson (Gere) is called out of retirement as he had spent much of his career attempting to capture Cassius and his conspirators. Shepherdson is paired with FBI analyst Ben Geary (Grace), a Harvard graduate who wrote his thesis on Cassius.

As much as it would like to be another Bourne Identity, The Double isn't much more than a nondescript espionage film full of tropes and archetypes we've seen a thousand times over. The protagonists are a generically mismatched pair with Shepherdson as the world weary veteran and Geary as the wide-eyed and determined rookie. Shepherdson lives a lonely existence while Geary is blessed with a loving wife (Odette Yustman) and newborn baby.

The Double also hinges on two major plot twists, the first of which occurs early in the film and is given away in the theatrical trailer. The twist is a fairly obvious one, unless you've never watched a movie before in your life. At least, the first twist makes sense and propels the story into the second and third acts. The climactic twist comes out of nowhere and only muddles the narrative rather than adding an extra dimension.

Though Brandt has written some really good action movies, he doesn't have a firm grasp of the genre as a director. Perhaps, it had something to do with the limitations of shooting on a low budget. The action sequences are brief, uninspired and only seem to exist as a vain attempt to bring a little energy to the lifeless drama.

Richard Gere is still pretty spry for a man who is sixty-two. His role in The Double isn't the usual genial character he's played in so many romantic comedies. It's a part that lies somewhere in between his turn as a corrupt police detective in Internal Affairs and his cynical beat cop from Brooklyn's Finest. Topher Grace has a knack for comedy and he shines in the film's lighter moments, but doesn't make much of an impression when he's forced to exercise his dramatic muscles. The cast also includes Martin Sheen as the Director of the CIA, Stephen Moyer as a Russian assassin, and the lovely Stana Katic from Castle as a prostitute.

There isn't a good reason for this movie to even exist. The Double feels unnecessary compared to recent spy films. It doesn't come close to matching the depth and complexities of the masterful Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. In fact, it doesn't even have half the thrills of Salt or even Spy Kids: All the Time in the World.

Rating: * ½ (*****)

Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day - Dir. Garry Marshall (2010)


As I wrote in my review for New York, I Love You, anthology films can be a mixed bag filled with hits and misses. That isn’t the case with Valentine’s Day, it is a complete and utter miss.

An American knockoff of Love Actually, Valentine’s Day was written by Katherine Fugate (creator of the Lifetime soap Army Wives) and directed by Garry Marshall (Pretty Woman). The film stars a litany of well known actors in a series of storylines set in L.A. and revolving around the titular holiday. The whole thing feels like someone threw together a bunch of half-formed ideas from the cookie cutter bin of rom-com concepts because they couldn’t flesh them out into feature length.

Ashton Kutcher is the central character, a florist who gets dumped by his fiancée, Jessica Alba. His best friend, Jennifer Garner, is dating a doctor (Patrick Dempsey), who turns out to be married. Jessica Biel is a sports agent who bonds with Jamie Foxx, a news reporter, over their mutual distaste for Valentine’s Day. Topher Grace works as a mail room clerk in Biel’s office and begins dating the receptionist, Anne Hathaway, who secretly doubles as a phone sex operator. Julia Roberts is an Army captain who shares a plane seat with Bradley Cooper.

The over bloated cast also includes: Julia’s niece Emma, Hector Elizondo, Shirley MacLaine, Queen Latifah, Eric Dane, Kathy Bates, and Joe Mantegna.

The Taylors, Lautner and Swift, also appear as a couple of high schoolers in love. They’re good-looking, bubbly, and empty headed. That pretty much sums up the entire movie. Everybody in the movie is hot, rich, and somehow keep managing to bump into each other. The interconnected contrivances are a lot like Crash, except with romance instead of racism. They all live in some fantasy world version of Los Angeles completely lacking in traffic, crime, or racial diversity. In Valentine’s Day, the only Mexican in L.A. is George Lopez.

Rating: *

Predators

Predators - Dir. Nimrod Antal (2010)


The original Predator remains a classic action film. It starred two future governors in Jesse “The Body” Ventura and Arnold in all his one-liner glory (”Stick around!”). Throw in Carl Weathers, great character actors like Bill Duke and Sonny Landham, and Lethal Weapon scribe Shane Black and you’ve got a testosterone heavy ensemble ready. The reputation of the first picture was tarnished by a less than stellar sequel and a pair of ill-advised Alien vs. Predator crossovers. Predators looks to right old wrongs.

The film is based on an old spec script written by Robert Rodriguez back in the mid-90’s. Screenwriters Alex Litvak and Michael Finch used that as a template with Rodriguez serving as producer and Nimrod Antal as director.

Predators literally drops the audience into the thick of things along with the protagonists. We watch Adrien Brody, as a no-nonsense mercenary, plummeting towards a dense jungle. He runs into an assortment of highly-trained soldiers and ruthless killers. They include a sniper for the Israel Defense Forces (Alice Braga), an enforcer for the Mexican drug cartels (Danny Trejo), a death row inmate (Walt Goggins), a Russian spetsnaz troop (former UFC fighter Oleg Taktarov), a member of a Sierra Leone death squad (Mahershalalhashbaz Ali), and a silent gangster for the Yakuza (Louis Ozawa Changchien). Topher Grace is the only one who sticks out like a sore thumb as a nerdy and seemingly harmless doctor.

They quickly realize they are stuck on an alien gaming preserve, being hunted by the Predators armed with advanced technology such as cloaking devices and cheesy infrared scanners.

Less than successful sequels generally verge too drastically from the previous picture. In such cases, a third film will go back to formula. Back to the Future was mainly about the love story between Marty McFly’s parents with time travel a secondary plot point. The sequel was all about time travel turning it into a cluttered and confusing mess. Though set in the Old West, Back to the Future III again focused on a love story involving Doc Brown. Predator 2 tried to change things up by placing the Predator into an urban setting. Predators returns them to the jungle in slightly different fashion.

Those of you who’ve seen the first Predator will find many familiar elements to the threequel. There’s a scaredy Latino woman and a big dude with an even bigger Gatling gun. One character challenges a Predator to a knife fight while another covers himself in mud. Composer John Debney borrows heavily from the musical cues of Alan Silvestri’s original score.

The film wastes no time in kicking off the action. There are no opening credits, no text crawl or exposition. It keeps things simple as well. You won’t even learn most of the characters’ names unless you read the end credits. They have no time for introductions and the audience doesn’t need them. They are fodder for the Predators so we are spared any lengthy back stories. Instead, the filmmakers keep the focus on the action as we get several great sequences. Hungarian director Nimrod Antal made his debut with Kontroll, following that up with the horror flick Vacancy and last year’s underrated Armored.

Antal directs in an old school fashion staying away from modern techniques like shaky cam and breakneck editing that only serve to confuse the action. Antal also forgoes heavy CGI, using it only as a way to accentuate practical effects. Predators was shot on location in Hawaii and the real jungles are a positive antithesis to the Day-Glo garishness of Pandora. The film is hard R too. It’s appropriately violent, but not overly gruesome.

Adrien Brody may seem an unlikely action hero. He’s not as physically imposing as Arnold, but he’s more than believable as a tough guy. The other actors do well in their roles as well with Topher Grace bringing some understated comic relief. Walt Goggins is also there for comic relief, but in an over-the-top fashion. His good ol’ boy character very similar to the one he played on The Shield. Laurence Fishburne chews up his scenes and spits them out in an all too brief role as a soldier who’s been on the planet a little too long.

Predators may not reinvent the wheel, but it didn’t need to. This is the kind of good, dumb fun that’s been lacking in today’s action film. The only missing ingredient would be quotable lines like, ”I ain’t got time to bleed,” and ”Stick around!”

Rating: ** ½