"The Double," is a taut spy-thriller with echoes of the Cold War and "The Day of the Jackal." It's not easy to speak about the plot without pooping the film's surprises but let's just say that everything's different from what it appears and no one is who he seems to be (that's where the film's title comes from). I've read reviews describing the film as confusing and too complicated but in my opinion these comments are ungenerous. "The Double" shows an instantaneous reassessment of what the viewer has seen. In that sense there's a mind-twisting satisfaction in the plot. Gere is great as an entertainingly minimal actor but he's always very convincing. Here he gives weariness to a character who had seen and done too much. "The Double" is one of those dark stories where every turn seems to be a turn for the worse. To sum up it's definitely worth a look.

I normally don't watch a lot of action films and I decided to watch "The Double" simply because my uncle strongly recommended it. And, in hindsight, I was not completely won over by the film but it was entertaining.

Topher Grace stars as an FBI agent, Ben Geary. He's rather obsessed with tracking down a famous and possibly death ex-Soviet agent, 'Cassius'. While no one is 100% sure what Cassius looks like or if he's alive, Ben just won't accept this since some recent murders seem to be his work. A retired CIA agent, Paul Shepherdson (Richard Gere) has been asked by a big-wig (Martin Sheen) to assist Ben with the case. I really CAN'T say what's happening next, as the film has many, many plot twists--ones that are so seriously surprising that I cannot talk about the rest of the plot. Suffice to say, you'll be caught by surprise many times. I like to be surprised, but in this case I wasn't so impressed because the surprised were too surprising--as if they were coming out of no where. All in all, an interesting film but one too many twists for my tastes--though the actors both did nice work here.

THE DOUBLE is another PG-13 political thriller, not dissimilar to the likes of the Michael Douglas flick THE SENTINEL. These films all seem to have a bland, samey look to them, clearly indebted to the Bourne films of yesterday but lacking the hard edge and finesse that made that trilogy such classics.

The plot is as predictable as they come, teaming up silver fox Richard Gere with a young and bland newcomer, Topher Grace. The two are on the hunt for an international assassin, but there's a major twist along the way which makes things pretty interesting. Sadly, the film is never as exciting as it should be, even though there's a pretty cool car chase through into the mix.

It's also ridiculously non-violent and the kind of film that teaches kids that garroting people is a bloodless act - ridiculous. I've never thought that violence in films is influential, but I actually find it quite offensive when it's glamorised in a bloodless way like here. Violence should be ugly, harsh, and realistic, not superficial. The cast, including Martin Sheen and Tamer Hassan in support, all appear to be going through the motions, leaving this a distinctly average effort.