The Double Blu-ray delivers stunning video and audio in this excellent Blu-ray release
Story kicks off with the mysterious murder of a senator bearing the marks of a Soviet assassin, who was long thought to be dead. To hunt down the killer, a retired CIA operative, who spent his career going toe-to-toe with his Soviet nemesis, is teamed with a young FBI agent.
Viewers today are so accustomed to "twists", "reveals" and "spoilers" that everyone assumes it's
supposed to be a Big Secret that the retired CIA man played by Richard Gere in The Double is
really . . . a Soviet assassin. (Oops!) But the trailer discloses it, hints are
dropped early in the film, and Gere's character confesses his identity less than half an hour in. And did I mention that the title of the film is The
Double?
As it happens, screenwriters Michael Brandt (who directed) and Derek Haas (who co-produced)
always intended the audience to know the character's dual identity. Their script originally opened
with the backstory now seen in flashbacks, and it wasn't until the editing stage that they decided
the narrative would have more energy if they started in the present. Either way, the story isn't
about who Gere's character is; it's about who's trying to flush him out and why. As with many
espionage tales, things get even murkier and more disturbing once the original question has been
answered.
Brandt and Haas sold the script for The Double to MGM, then had to reclaim it when that studio
filed for bankruptcy and was parceled out among various buyers. In the meantime, they achieved
enough notoriety with their scripts for 3:10 to Yuma and Wanted to obtain funding to make The
Double themselves, albeit without major studio backing for a wide release. During its three-week
sojourn in just 45 theaters, the film barely registered. Most critics panned it; my colleague, Brian
Orndorf, called it "ridiculously convoluted", and that was probably the nicest thing in his review.
Few saw what I did, which is a diverting genre throwback about people for whom lying isn't just
a technique but the essence of who they are. Now that Image Entertainment is releasing the film
in an affordable, first-rate Blu-ray presentation, you can judge for yourself.
The Double opens with two incidents that appear to be related, though it's not clear how. The
first is an illegal border crossing from Mexico into the U.S. that's anything but routine, because
the group includes Russians. The second is the murder of U.S. Senator Darden (Edward Austin
Kelly), a Russian supporter with substantial business interests in its new economy. Darden was
most recently seen on TV debating a Senate colleague, Friedman (Hugh Weaver), who urged that
Russia has quietly grown into a new threat while America has been distracted by the Middle
East. The manner in which Darden was killed triggers alarms all the way to the top of the
Department of Homeland Security, because it's identical to the methods of a Soviet assassin
thought to have died long ago. Code name: Cassius.
CIA Director Highland (Martin Sheen) turns to retired operative Paul Shepherdson (Gere), who
spent twenty years tracking Cassius and the six killers he trained and controlled in a group
dubbed "the Cassius Seven". Shepherdson believes he successfully eliminated everyone except
the head man himself, but he's also certain that Senator Darden's murder is the work of a
copycat, not Cassius. A seasoned viewer would already suspect the reason for Shepherdson's
instant certainty, even if the filmmakers were trying to hide it (which they aren't). But then
Shephardson's old boss tells him something startling: One of the Cassius Seven assassins, known
only as "Brutus", survived his injuries and has been held in a secure federal facility ever
since.
Another surprise awaits Shepherdson at his first briefing, where he finds the FBI sitting cheek by
jowl with the CIA, courtesy of the new Homeland Security regimen. In particular, there's a young
FBI hotshot named Ben Geary (Topher Grace), who wrote his thesis on Cassius and is obsessed
with every detail relating to the shadowy executioner. Shepherdson and Geary lock horns almost
immediately, but theory has to be put on hold while they visit Brutus (True Blood's Stephen
Moyer, with a thick accent and a lot of facial scars). It's to Brutus that Shepherdson directly
reveals his true identity. From that point on the film becomes an elaborate cat-and-mouse game
between Geary and Shepherdson, as the former tries to find Cassius, and the latter tries to
look like he's doing so, all the while misdirecting the search. (Brandt and Haas have said that one of
their inspirations was the 1987 Kevin Costner film No Way Out.)
Gere says in the extras that actors are attracted to characters who lie constantly, and certainly
one's enjoyment of The Double depends in large part on whether one is intrigued by scenes
where different agendas are in conflict but not all the characters know it. Some of these scenes
appear obvious, such as the domestic moments, when Geary brings his new "partner" home for
dinner with his wife, Natalie (Odette Yustman), and children, after which Shepherdson begins
urging Geary to drop out of the Cassius pursuit. But is Shepherdson afraid of Geary's acumen or
concerned that he'll have to kill him and deprive the family of a husband and father?
Shepherdson repeatedly describes Cassius as a ruthless killer without conscience or remorse, but
as Gere himself observes, by making such observations about himself, Shepherdson is really
confessing the opposite.
In any case, Geary is not to be dissuaded, and he accompanies Shepherdson as they track down
leads from Homeland Security on the Russian group that entered through Mexico. This brings
them to a Russian prostitute, Amber (a brief but memorable appearance by Castle's Stana
Katic), and then to a deadly foe known as Bozlovski (Tamer Hassan), who is only too happy to
acknowledge that he has "played" Cassius from time to time. But is he responsible for Senator
Darden's murder, and if so, why?
By the end of the film, most things have been revealed, and nothing has been resolved. Another
film that Brandt and Haas have cited as inspiration is Three Days of the Condor, and anyone
familiar with Sydney Pollack's masterpiece of Seventies paranoia will remember that it
concludes with a neat wrap-up of the incident that sent Robert Redford's analyst running for his
life—but nothing has changed. That's arguably how The Double ends, but much depends on
your interpretation of the last scene. Mine isn't optimistic.
The Double was shot by top cinematographer Jeffrey Kimball, whose work extends from an
impressive set of films for Tony Scott (Top Gun, True Romance and Beverly Hills
Cop II) to a trio for John Woo (Mission Impossible 2, Windtalkers and Paycheck) to Stallone's The
Expendables. On their commentary track, Brandt and Haas note that having Kimble as their DP allowed them to attract a first-rate crew, even
though their film was low-budget, because everyone wants to work with Kimball.
Brandt told Kimball that he wanted to "feel" the film, and he didn't care if that
meant elements in the frame were out of focus or the frame was dark. Kimball gave Brandt what
he wanted, but he and his crew were too professional not to deliver a glossy image at the same
time. The Double "feels" like it was shot on film, in large part because Kimball knows how to
shoot images with a sense of texture, e.g., by using smoke in the air to provide diffusion for the
light. (The commentary talks about this in detail.) But he also knows how to deliver a detailed
and fine-grained image with deep blacks, appropriate color delineation (corrected via a digital
intermediate), and a palette that shifts easily between chilly blues for government facilities and
warmer ambers and browns for life outside. All of this is well presented on Image's 1080p,
AVC-encoded Blu-ray, with no signs of inappropriate digital tampering by way of high frequency
filtering, artificial sharpening or compression artifacts.
The DTS lossless presentation of The Double's 5.1 track is extremely impressive. Listen, for
example, to the scene where Martin Sheen's CIA chief and Richard Gere's retired operative enter
CIA headquarters, walk through a corridor and enter a briefing room. The sounds of the
environments they pass through envelop you and move with the briskly pacing pair. Throughout
the film, small sounds appropriate to the scene are placed off-camera (a door closing, creaks,
river flow, traffic, etc.) to create the sense of the larger world in which these operatives have to
move and work. An elaborate car chase ("battle" would be more appropriate) in the latter part of
the film is as kinetic sonically as it is visually. The score by John Debney (Iron Man 2,
The Passion of the Christ) plays with appropriate range and intensity.
Commentary with Writer-Director Michael Brandt and Writer-Producer Derek
Haas: Brandt and Haas provide a wealth of information about the background of the
script and especially the changes it underwent during production and editing. Brandt is
particularly interesting in detailing the contributions of cinematographer Jeffrey Kimball
and pointing out numerous shots that were enhanced by visual effects in ways that aren't
obvious (e.g., allowing locations in Detroit to substitute convincingly for Paris and
Washington, D.C.). The partners tell numerous stories from the set, many illustrating the
challenges of working under time pressures and budget constraints, and they are
unstinting in their gratitude for the support of a thoroughly professional cast and crew on
a film that wasn't offering anyone a big payday.
Producer Interviews (HD, 1080p; 1.78:1; 7:49): So denominated on the features menu,
this is a general featurette (but an unusually good one) containing interviews with Gere,
Grace, Moyer, Brandt and Haas. Their comments are brief but informative. The entire
discussion is rife with major spoilers and should be avoided until
after watching the film.
Trailer (HD, 1080p; 2.35:1; 2:26): As noted in the introduction, the consensus
was that the trailer gave too much away. But all it really does is explain the film's basic premise.
To return to my colleague's review, yes, The Double is "convoluted", but audiences
expect that from their espionage stories, especially after 24 (for which The Double's plot line would have
supplied material for maybe four episodes, at most) and slickly assembled potboilers like Salt or
even a cerebrally classy one like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. If ridiculous convolution were
automatically a flaw, the cluttered alternate universes of Middle Earth, Hogwarts, Gotham City
and, lest we forget, the Galactic Empire, wouldn't have the hordes of obsessively devoted fans
populating site after site, filling up numerous threads, and buying multiple versions of the films.
The Double isn't a perfect film, but it's an interesting one that, as I discovered while
rewatching portions for this review, reveals additional layers on subsequent viewings, which isn't something I can say of everything I've reviewed here. The
film is recommended, and the Blu-ray is highly recommended.
Blu-ray.com and Image Entertainment are offering three Blu-ray.com members the opportunity to win a copy of director Michael Brandt's The Double, starring Richard Gere, Topher Grace, Martin Sheen and Stephen Moyer. The spy vs. spy thriller arrives on Blu-ray on ...
Image Entertainment will bring The Double to Blu-ray at the end of the month. The directorial debut of screenwriter Michael Brandt (Wanted), this thriller stars Richard Gere (Chicago ) as a retired CIA operative who teams up with a green young agent (Topher Grace, ...
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