tieman64
"The Double" boasts an interesting premise: Cassius, the greatest assassin in the world (Richard Gere), trains a gang of Russian assassins. He then joins the CIA as a double agent, where he secretly works for the Soviet Union, hunts the assassins he trained and then pretends to hunt for himself. After Cassius' retirement from the CIA, a young FBI agent (Topher Grace) resumes attempts to apprehend Cassius. To assist him on his quest, he teams up with none other than Cassius himself.This is an interesting angle for a cat-and-mouse procedural. The drama is derived not from finding the villain, but from the villain finding ways to trick the "good guys" into finding a different villain. Late in its final act, the film then delivers another neat twist: the FBI agent tracking Cassius is himself a Russian double agent.But despite its interesting premise, "The Double" is mostly inept, shallow and has little to say about the workings of Eastern and Western, neo-Imperialistic spy agencies. Director Michael Brandt's script wastes a good idea, utilizes unnecessary flashbacks and his picture as a whole lacks drama, movement and is far too often hokey and over-the-top. Topher Grace works well as an archetypal rookie.5/10 – See "Demonlover".
tommer
one illogical twist after another. especially the end : Ben Geary (Topher Grace) has been waiting for 10 years to kill Cassius, so why doesn't he kill him when he's right in front of him and has a gun in his hand to do it? And does he think the Russians will allow him (sleeper / Russian agent) to remain with his American family? no way! And why doesn't he tell Tom Highland (Martin Sheen) the truth? That Gere = Cassius and Bozlovski = also an assassin, just a different one. And that Bozlovski (Tamer Hassan) killed Gere's wife and son in 1988. Apparently, it is easy to lie to the head of CIA as well as FBI. You even get a job proposal! By the way, why would a CIA agent have more field-work than an FBI agent? Usually, it is the other way around. Another illogicality. And another thing : why would an assassin (Richard Gere) live out the rest of his life in the same town/vicinity, where the most CIA and FBI agents are around (headquarters)? Maybe I see more crazy issues than there are, blurred by seeing so many crazy issues.
Wanda Keenan
So a tanned Harvard geek obsesses about Cassius - A psycho from the nineties who was paid to kill by the Russian government.Mr Harvard exclaims passionately "Why did Cassius use cheese wire to kill, I want to get to know him, I want to know what makes him tick". BLUNDER ONE: Assassins do it as a job, they get paid well and it doesn't bother them enough to quit. Simples.Within moments of Richard Gere (The 'Double') persuading his Harvard, FBI colleague to give an imprisoned ex Russian assassin a huge radio that only plays Russian music, the Russian nearly faints in joy at the gift, however the moment he's alone the Russian swallows the batteries from the radio, starts vomiting blood, gets taken to hospital, vomits the batteries up, then attacks two coppers, taking one of their copper guns, runs out of the hospital only to get his throat cut in the style of Cassius.BLUNDER YUCKY DUCKY VERY F***Y: All that happens, and Mr Harvard doesn't think through how suspicious that makes Richard Gere look. This Russian in prison has been in solitary for a decade, with not even a radio to listen to, because he's so dangerous... but an FBI agent can hand over a radio the size of a brick.... and not even the guards think to take it off him.....Fuzz Buckets!
cookieninjak
overall a great movie that has a really good plot that is suspenseful. It takes a huge turning point in the story of the movie that just completely turns it up a notch, if you know what I mean. Acting is good and legit, and not like one of those really cheesy movies that everyone hates. It gets you sucked into the story as you try to figure out the mystery along with one of the main characters. Again, overall a great movie, although I did wish the ending was a bit better. A must watch for people who like action and mystery. Movie incorporates both of those things really well. Even though this movie didn't exactly have a lot of action, it was enough to get the story across, and the story was so good anyways it made up for that.
AD
