Bad Movie Tuesday: The Double

The Double has been made 50 times before. Two FBI guys defined by their hair have to track an implausibly good assassin. The two agents are Richard “silver fox” Gere teaming up with a Topher “hair gell” Grace.

What is their mission? The retired guy and the “librarian” have to hunt down the greatest killer in the history of the world.

Cassius the killer is a ghost that ghosts are afraid of. Cassius walks on raindrops and disappears into thin air. His motives are studied and killing methods revered. He is a mystery…an unknown force…..UNTIL YOU FIND OUT WHO IS IN THE PREVIEW.

Who is this famous killer of killers. It is none other than Mr. Gere himself.

Richard Gere plays the frustratingly good killer Cassius. Half man…..Half ice…..All hair. There is a scene in the film when he executes an assassination so perfectly it leaves you annoyed. The only way this kill could have happened is if 1,000 pieces fell together at the same time. Gere times the throat slit perfectly in a crowded street then walks away while people are looking at something else.

Take a look at this picture.  He timed another kill perfectly between roving security cameras. He shouldn’t be called Cassius. He should be named Rolex (because of his timing and the fact that he hides the sharp wire in his watch). I’m surprised he didn’t kill the guy than revive him. Then, when the guy was healing in a hospital he’d kill him again and put him back in the original crime scene.

Who is Gere’s biggest foe. It is Topher Grace. His character knows everything about Cassius. Which provides for unintentionally funny scenes where Gere reacts to all the correct assumptions. Topher says Cassius drinks Scotch when Gere asks for scotch. Topher says Cassius returns to crime scenes and Gere is at the crime scene. You keep waiting for the lightbulb to go off in Grace’s head but it never does…..Until the end when you find out he is a Russian spy who was sent to flush out Cassius.

The Double lacks humor, tension and receding hair lines. I know both Topher and Gere are solid actors so I was mystified at the lack of anything. It is a bland film that needed Chris Klein’s character from Street Fighter: The Legend of Chun Li (Read the Bad Movie Tuesday review). In that film Klein’s character Nash is hunting down the best criminal in the world. Nash is borderline insane, slightly dumb and highly entertaining. To see him paired with Gere would have been hilarious.

Sidenote: Nash would not make this movie good. However, he would make it entertainingly bad. Which is better than boring.

Between this movie and Salt I’m worried about how many Russian spies there are in the United States. If these movies are correct 1 out of 5 CIA/FBI agents are undercover Russians who do not know that there are other undercover Russians. That would actually be a very funny satire. Dr. Stangelove 2?

In the world of Bad Movie Tuesday I believe this movie was made because Richard Gere was angry he wasn’t the assassin in The Jackal.  So, he found a director and had him make the movie.

Gere: In this scene I want to kill 17 people by just looking at them.

Director: I liked you better as a pacifist.

Do not watch The Double. Watch the preview instead. Imagine Nash chasing Cassius.