The Double (2011)

In the second film of our big screen stars go DTV week, we look at The Double starring former box office heavy hitter Richard Gere. Two things about this post before we start. First and foremost, this is a suspense/spy yarn filled with plot twists, and while I'll try my best to avoid giving too much away, even by not talking about something I'll kind of be talking about it, if you know what I mean. To be on the safe side, if you're planning on watching this, and want to go in cold, I'd come back to this review after seeing it. The other is more of a personal side note. I have this friend that is a very bad speller. One time, I showed him something I wrote, and he meant to scribble "Double Barrel" on it, which was our-speak for two middle fingers. Problem is, he spelled "double" "dubble", and from that point, I've been saying "dah-bubble" whenever I see the word "double", initially in mocking him, but now as a habit. That means this title has been somewhat troubling for me-- er rather, "trah-bubbling".

The Double has Richard Gere as a retired CIA company man that did a lot of espionage stuff during the Cold War. There was this one Russian spy Cassius that he could never catch though. Well, it looks like ol' Cassius is back after a fifteen-year hiatus, so the CIA calls Gere out of retirement and has him work with rookie FBI agent Topher Grace, who just happened to write his MA thesis on Cassius. Will they be able to bring down this greatest of all spies? And more importantly, is everyone who they seem to be?-- because they almost never are in spy movies.



Part of me feels like this one went one plot twist too many, and that made it a little too silly; but another part of me feels like that last plot twist was kind of necessary. It was the one you most expected, and the laziest one they could've gone for, so in that sense, it does undermine whatever this had going on for it. And that's the other question, exactly what does this have going on for it? After Gere and a few other solid supporting performances, like Martin Sheen's and Tamer Hassan's, this is really just your run-of-the-mill spy yarn, the kind of thing that thinks it's more sophisticated than it is. For me, it was okay, but not great.

Let's take a look at Mr. Gere's rap sheet. Starred in some of the most iconic films of the last 30-35 years, including American Gigolo, An Officer and a Gentleman, Pretty Woman, and 2002's best picture winning Chicago; in the 90s, had the hottest woman in the game wearing his chain in supermodel Cindy Crawford; and for Unfaithful and The Mothman Prophecies, made $15 million each. One thing I noticed right away here, is that he's still got it. First scene, he's at a little league game talking to one of the mothers, and all the game is still there, he's still very much leading man he was back then. I don't know that this movie is more a blip than a trend for him though, because he is over 60, and leading roles with decent pay might be more readily available in Abu Dhabi funded DTV flicks shot in Michigan, especially ones with more action like this one. He's also probably reached a point where his market is mostly people who don't make it out to the movies anymore, but that means his stuff from the 90s and 2000s still burns up TNT's New Classics and whatnot, so it's not like there isn't money to be made by starring him in something like this that's DTV or made for TV.



Gere's co-star was Topher Grace, whom we know better from That 70s Show. For a while it seemed like Ashton Kutcher was the most successful from that cast, but it looks now as if Mila Kunis is surging past him. Grace has always been third behind those two, I think not quite leading man material, but solid enough an actor that he should still be getting work. I need to see Take Me Home Tonight, but I thought he was pretty decent in Predators. Here he was leaning on his youthful appearance to play the rookie to Gere's seasoned veteran, which, again, makes the final plot twist either too much to swallow, or make a lot of sense. I have a feeling Grace is going to be one of those boomerang guys that fluctuates between the big screen and DTV, but we'll see, he may just go back to TV like Kutcher did if the roles aren't there.

Other co-stars include Sheen and Hassan-- who I already mentioned above. Neither are in it much, Sheen playing the head of the CIA, and Hassan playing the baddie. They both give this more of a DTV feel though, because we've seen the two of them here at the DTVC before. We also had Castle's Stana Katic as a Russian prostitute interrogated by Gere somewhat violently (I wonder, though, if that was a career highlight for her, having Richard Gere pinning her to the ground with a gun to her head and yelling at her-- it would be for me) and Christopher Marquette as Grace's partner at the FBI offices. Finally, I had to mention Odette Yustman (now Annable), who plays Grace's wife. You might remember her from The Unborn-- or rather, her butt from The Unborn. The movie was sold primarily on a shot of her from behind looking at herself in the mirror in her underwear. Here you are fellas, taking your lady to the movies, what are you going to see? There's a poster for The Unborn, you point to it. "Oh honey, I heard this one was really good!" "Which one? Oh, that... no, we're not seeing that." "What, because... oh, I didn't even notice that until you pointed it out... no, no, it's got Gary Oldman in it, that's why I want to see it... come on, you think I want to see a flick just because it's got a hot babe in her underwear in the poster?" "Uh-huh."



This movie was shot in Michigan, but takes place in Washington, D.C. Just in case we don't believe them, they pad the film out with shots of DC landmarks. Though I've never been to Michigan, I have had two occasions to visit the nation's capital. Few cool things I remembered: great Ethiopian food, a great Chinatown, and a great city to do the tourist thing in. Also, they have a nice subway system. Another thing I remembered though: some of the worst traffic ever. We were coming back from Tyson's Corner, and being Mainers, we didn't think about the time-- actually, being from near Boston, we still didn't think of the time, because Boston never gets as bad for rush hour as what we saw there-- and found ourselves smack in the evening commute.

All right, I've padded this review out enough, time to wrap it up. While there's the Richard Gere novelty to this, it's still pretty run-of-the-mill. You've seen this before, you've seen all the plot twists and double-crosses before, the question is, do you like this kind of thing? If so, check The Double out on Watch Instantly while you can, or rent it on DVD.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1646980/

Marked for Murder (1989)

I noticed it had been a bit since we'd covered a Wings Hauser film here, so I caught wind of this and decided to make it happen. Why not, right, you can never have enough Wings Hauser in your life, that's what I always say.

Marked for Murder has DTVC Hall of Famer Wings Hauser as Emerson (Lake and Palmer), a TV exec who sends an assistant and an intern to some guy's place to get a big box VHS tape for their big box VHS movie club night. When they get there, a detective gives them a hard time, and they have to talk their way out of the place-- but they have the tapes. Then they get chased by that cop, and also find out that the guy whose place it is has been killed-- and the murder was pinned on them. Now they need to clear their names and get the tape to Hauser in time for their big box VHS movie night-- they're screening R.O.T.O.R.!



Whoa! Hold the phone, son! I'm looking at Wings Hauser on the cover, but where is he in my movie? Did I sign on for a mush faced wannabe Arch Hall Jr. and Martin Sheen's lesser known daughter Renee? I think I signed on for Wings Hauser, didn't I? But then, after about 30 minutes off-screen, there he is again, at a strip club, trying to remember the name of the Singapore Sling so he can order one from the waitress. It might be one of Wings Hauser's best scenes ever. Now I'm faced with a dilemma: kill this for being a bait-and-switch, or love it for the great Wings that it does have. I don't know...

The thing with Wings Hauser is, there's a certain je ne sais quois, and really, if you get it, you know it's something I can't explain to those who don't. It's the seeing him in a members only jacket and tight tennis shorts assisting a woman at his house with her suntanning. And it's us, as the viewer, getting to say "why yes, this is a members only jacket I'm wearing." It's the scene at the strip club, where he's trying to remember the name of the Singapore Sling. Only Wings can make that kind of thing awesome, in a way that only Wings can. The issue is: does some of the best Wings you've ever seen make up for the fact that there isn't as much of him on-screen due to a bait-and-switch? Again, I don't know...



One of the biggest misconceptions about this blog is that the word "connoisseur" in the name is meant to denote that I think I have a higher knowledge or more discerning taste when it comes to movies over other people. The name, "Direct to Video Connoisseur", is actually entirely tongue-in-cheek, meant to conjure up images of someone in a smoking jacket with a pipe, Alistair Cooke style, watching Dolph Lundgren movies. That said, I have to admit that seeing Ross Hagen and Wings Hauser share the same screen, even for only a short period at the end, made me feel like something of a literal connoisseur. It was like sitting on a music sharing site, and waiting weeks for a rare live version of a song from one of my favorite bands, featuring a guest vocal from another one of my favorite singers, and when Ross Hagen appears on screen for the first time, near the end of the film, and he and Wings share their first line, I had that same feeling I get when I play that song I'd waited to download for so long. I just needed my smoking jacket and my pipe. This extends my dilemma, because it has this gem at the end, but before that, I'm dealing with a Wings Hauser bait-and-switch. I just don't know...

Martin Sheen has a cameo in this. It's a cameo that is given away in the opening credits, but a cameo just the same. His daughter, Renee, is the assistant that Hauser sends out with the mush faced Arch Hall Jr. wannabe. The cameo is sweet, because he's just a man in the park, but after a couple close-ups, all he does is stand there like a bewildered old man, watching the action-- or lack thereof-- happening in front of him. It was pretty fantastic. It happens at the 50 minute mark, which is right after Wings comes back into the picture. The problem is, there's still that crap before it because this was a Wings Hauser bait-and-switch. Ugh, I don't know...



It was this mush faced Arch Hall Jr. wannabe who replaced Wings Hauser for most of the film. That's right. You may recognize him from Vice Academy, or another Wings films I've done, Mind, Body, and Soul, where he had a sex scene with Ginger Lynn Allen. He currently works in the biz editing popular reality shows, including a couple of my favorites, The Jersey Shore, and Tool Academy.

So, I'm going to lay it all out here for you: first off, this is only available in the States on VHS, and it might cost you if you aren't lucky. Second, we're talking Wings Hauser bait-and-switch for a good chunk of the middle of the film, but when he comes back in, it's some of the best Wings ever. Third, Ross Hagen and Wings Hauser together on one screen, even if it's only for a brief period of time. Fourth and finally, Martin Sheen cameo as a befuddled old man in the park. As far as the rest of the nuts and bolts, bad dialog, not always the best acting, and not a lot of actual action. I guess, all in all, the film worked for me, but that's a tough call, and if you're not a huge Wings fan, you might want to stay off this one.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0097837/

No Code of Conduct (1998)

I had forgotten this one was in my queue for a while, but when RepoGenetic put in a request for more Mark Dacascos this year, I found it again when I did a search of him on Netflix. The star power alone made this a must see, with the aforementioned Dacascos, Charlie Sheen (as Charles), Martin Sheen, Bret Michaels, and the great Paul Gleason. This just couldn't go wrong, could it?

No Code of Conduct is a tedious crime drama about Charlie (Charles) Sheen as a disgraced cop whose wife doesn't like him and whose dad (Martin), who's also his boss, wants him to get his shit together. One night, while accompanying his partner, Dacascos, doing some vice work, they fall into his dad's drug investigation, when one of the dealers picks up an undercover cop as a prostitute. Now the drug case is blown wide open, and Sheen wants to see it through, while his dad is wondering why his superiors, Paul Gleason and the sheriff from Murder She Wrote, are stonewalling him.



Wow. All that talent, and the best you can do is bore me to sleep for the first forty-five minutes, and barely make up for it with a decent last half-hour. I mean, after the first five minutes, where there's a drug deal gone bad, I'm thinking, this might not be so bad. But suddenly I'm transported into a world of poorly written, endless dialog inundating me with useless backstory and undramatic drama. It just goes to show, you can line up all the acting talent you want, but if the story sucks, you got nothing. Oh, and before I forget, the head baddie was played by the sheriff on Murder She Wrote. Not only that, but the good guys don't take him out, he dies when he's unable to properly back his van out of a parking garage and it explodes. I am not kidding. Even Harold Pinter couldn't make that work, so it wasn't all writing that was wrong with this.

Of course, at the DTVC, we work hard to dispel the myth that bad writing makes for a bad movie experience. We frequently showcase films with zero acting, directing, or writing talent, and we frequently extol the virtues of those films. That's because the people who make the ones we like know their shortcomings, and make up for it with plenty of mindless action, or ridiculous gore. That first forty-five minutes in No Code of Conduct that bored me to death could've been scrapped and made into some great action scenes. You've got a great talent like Mark Dacascos, why not have him and Sheen get into a bar room brawl? You can tell me all you want that that kind of thing happens in every bad action film, but you didn't do any better-- in fact you did worse, because you just made a bad action film with no action, which is even worse.



So I have to apologize to RepoGenetic for this first Dacascos effort of 2010, because he's completely wasted here. I just don't even know why you cast Dacascos--I don't care if he's doing you a solid or helping out a bud in their independent production-- if you don't utilize his strengths. One of the baddies showed some knife skills early on, why not have him fight it out with Dacascos, instead of they way they killed him, by running him over. Just another way this film was totally sautéed in wrong sauce.

In watching this, I have to re-imagine the world as it was in 1998. Martin Sheen was a year away from The West Wing, Charlie (Charles) Sheen was two years from taking over for Michael J. Fox in Spin City, and five from Two and a Half Men being the hit that would bring him Hanes commercials with Michael Jordan and what not. Even Bret Michaels was still trying to make sense of a world post Hair metal, as Rock of Love was still a long ways off. It just shows how quickly one can be done and come back. I mean, Charlie Sheen had resorted to calling himself "Charles", how hilarious is that?



I forgot to capture an image of Joe Estevez. He was great. He played some guy named Pappy, was overweight, and had these stubby little fingers. More than anything, he looked like disgraced former Texas Tech head coach Mike Leach. I'd love to see a biopic about Mike Leach made with Estevez in the lead role. You could really play some of the better angles of the story, like Leach's obsession with pirates, or his press conference where he said his players needed to stop listening to their "fat little girlfriends". The question, of course, is whether or not Joe Estevez would have time for a movie like that. Since this came out, he's been in 97 movies, including 13 that are still in various stages of development.

This does not live up to the star power it advertises. A decent last twenty to thirty in no way makes up for an excruciating first forty-five. Poorly written, no good action to make up for it, a total waste of Mark Dacascos' talent, and the hilarious casting decision of the sheriff from Murder She Wrote as the baddie, adds up to a whole lot of bad.

For more info: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0131502/