Review of The Double on DVD

In “The Double,” the murder of a U.S. Senator with business ties to Russia points to a Soviet assassin code-named “Cassius". The problem is that "Cassius" is long thought to be dead. Paul Shepherdson (Richard Gere) is a retired CIA operative who spent his career chasing Cassius. Gere’s character is brought back from retirement to help with this case. Shepherdson is partnered with Ben Geary (Topher Grace), a rookie FBI agent who wrote his Master's thesis on Cassius and is convinced the assassin has returned.
 
The two must work together to put a stop to this assassin and figure out if Cassius has indeed returned from the grave or is someone is just copying him.

The fact that the trailer reveals the identity of Cassius, it comes as no surprise that the film reveals this in the first act of the movie. So, there is very little to think about as the movie progresses. It just becomes a tedious cat and mouse chase. There is one more twist, but it comes too late into the film. Most people would have given up on the movie by then.

Gere and Grace have very little chemistry and this film struggles across the finish line. While I love the spy genre, the idea of the Russians as the bad guys makes this extremely dated.


The video and audio quality on the DVD is excellent. As far as extra features go, the DVD only has the film's trailer and an audio commentary by the writing team of Michael Brandt and Derek Haas.