The Double

Starring Richard Gere, Toper Grace and Martin Sheen;
Stephen Moyer, Odette Annable, Stana Katic
Screenplay by Michael Brandt and Derek Haas
Directed by Michael Brandt
website: http://www.thedoublemovie.com/

DO NOT WATCH THE TRAILER FOR THIS FILM . . . DO NOT WATCH THE TRAILER FOR THIS FILM

IN SHORT: Heed the warning or you'll waste your money. [Rated PG-13 for intense sequences of action and violence, some disturbing images and language.]

First, a number of folk illegally cross the border from Mexico. INS busts up the crossing, but 4 get past our nation's finest. Folk get shot or a body gets dumped or something like that. It happens very quickly. Pay close attention 'cuz what appears to be completely unrelated to the rest of the story you are about to see is crucial to the unfolding plot.

In DC a US Senator is murdered. The method of killing indicates said killer is a long thought dead Russian spy, code named "Cassius" by the CIA. Retired agent Paul Shepherdson (Richard Gere) is called back to service by the CIA boss Tom Highland (Martin Sheen) and teamed with an FBI special agent Agent Geary (Topher Grace) who has spent his educational history -- he wrote his Harvard Masters thesis analyzing how Shepherdson handled the case (we're assuming from public records. The CIA isn't so dumb that it lets highly classified material out in the light of day, right? We hope.) Geary has yelped to his bosses that the murder of said Senator reeks of Cassius' hands.

Sherpherdon, again, repeats that Cassius is dead. Dead. Dead. Dead. But the case is reopened and, either from a sense of duty or a resentment of Agent Geary's actions, Shepherdson comes back on board as the CIA half of a CIA/FBI team-up. We also meet several more CIA agents but we won't talk so much about them because, early in the film, we learn that. . .

. . . the CIA Human Resources Department does a truly awful job of checking the background of the people it hires. Yes, one of the CIA folk we meet, whether Sherpherdson or Highland or those we won't reveal, is a dirty rotten stinking Commie agent. Well, he was back when there were Commies to be worried about.

But y'all are smart enough to guess that if Gere is the dirty rotten stinking Commie spy, it would make a terric thriller if his FBI partner were to figure it out. The question then becomes, "How does FBI Agent Geary prove it before CIA Agent Shepherdson figures out that his partner knows, and kills him?"

Or something like that. Heck, if the CIA were inept enough to let a Commie like Highland (just go with us on this) into a position of power at the top of the CIA then, perhaps both Gere's character and Grace's character are in danger. . .

And saying all that would still be teasing what would otherwise be a pretty good thriller, except that everything that makes the film worth watching is spilled in the trailer. We were fairly enthusiastic about this film until we stumbled upon those two minutes of tease. We then went bananas screaming at the publicist (and it's not her fault that the studio made an idiotic decision).

On average, a first run movie ticket will run you Ten Bucks. Were Cranky able to set his own price to The Double, he would have paid . . .

$7/ $2

If you haven't seen the trailer, the first rating applies. If you have, there is no point in seeing this film. Just about everything worth watching is revealed in that two minutes of film trailer.

	Click to buy films by Michael Brandt
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