Double Whammy (2001)

User Rating:

5.7/10   

Director:

Tom DiCillo

Writer:

Tom DiCillo (writer)

Release Date:

3 August 2001 (Portugal)

Genre:

Comedy | Crime | Drama

Plot:

A world-weary police detective who fails to stop a fast-food restaurant massacre struggles to regain his departmental reputation, public image and self-worth.

Plot Keywords:

Chiropractor | Detective | Fast Food | Police | New York

Awards:

1 win & 4 nominations

US TV Schedule:

Wed. July 22	4:30 PM	COMEDY
Thur. July 23	10:00 AM	COMEDY

Cast

Denis Leary	...	Ray Pluto
Elizabeth Hurley	...	Dr. Ann Beamer
Luis Guzmán	...	Juan Benitez
Victor Argo	...	Lt. Spigot
Chris Noth	...	Chick Dimitri
Donald Faison	...	Cletis
Keith Nobbs	...	Duke
Steve Buscemi	...	Jerry Cubbins
Maurice Compte	...	Jo Jo
Otto Sanchez	...	Ping Pung
Melonie Diaz	...	Maribel Benitez
Millie Tirelli	...	Yolanda
Kevin Olson	...	Ricky Lapinski
Joe D'Angerio	...	Detective Janks
Maurice G. Smith	...	Boover

MPAA:

Rated R for language, violence, some sexuality and drug use.

Runtime:

93 min | UK:100 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Iceland:12 | New Zealand:R16 | Australia:MA (cable rating) | France:U | Italy:T | Spain:13 | UK:15 | USA:R (certificate #38135)

Filming Locations:

New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Apostle

Goofs:

Continuity: When Ray's boss holds up the newspaper it reads "Super [superintendent] Stabbed", but in the next shot, the paper on the desk clearly reads "Super Slain".

Movie Connections:

Features Narc (1988) (VG)

Not worth it

This has all the ingredients of a good bad imitation Quentin Tarantino movie. The recipe goes something like this. You first have a crummy urban setting with lots of vulgar characters. You add a plot that richochets meaninglessly from one scene to another. If one of the scenes has something to do with hamburgers, so much the better. Organize the scenes so that a handful of different sets of characters inhabits each. Make sure the characters dress oddly or are otherwise groomed distinctively. (Marcellus had a bandaid on the back of his neck, so you can have one of the characters wear a rather larger bandage on his neck too, if you like.) Give the dialogue a quirky cast. Have a conversational exchange irrelevant to the plot -- if not about Quarter Pounders, then about why it is that girls can say things to other girls like, "Hey, guys, let's get out of here," and about why it is that girls can call other girls "guys," but guys can't call each other "girls." Mix in characters of different races and ethnic background. Organize the sets of characters into what we call in haute cuisine "subplots." The characters in each "subplot" should meet each other from time to time. Add as much violence as you want, being certain that although it is rendered realistically on screen it is treated matter-of-factly by your characters. Garnish with jokes. Serve tepid.

Tarantino's movies can be immensely enjoyable because you know while you're watching them that you're seeing originals. Nobody did quite what he did before he did it. But Tarantino's work bears the same relationship to "Double Whammy" as Bernard Buffet's work does to those acrylic paintings you see on motel walls -- hasty sketches of sailing ships with a thousand drooping stays and shrouds.

I'll briefly mention the "subplots" here. Steve Buscemi is worried because he once glanced at the hero's a** and is afraid he's becoming gay. Two weird dudes, one of them trying desperately to ape his black partner in manner and speech, are "mega-ultra-realist" screenwriters who must enact every episode from their developing opus. Elizabeth Hurley is a chiropractor recommended by Buscemi to the hero, Leary, as someone who can cure Leary's bad back, which unfortunately prevented him from stopping a mass murderer in a burger shop. (You see how the "subplots" overlap a bit, like the circles in a Venn diagram?)

None of this movie is believable in the slightest, but perhaps the least believable incident of all involves Leary picking up the phone and calling his new girl friend, Hurley. Hurley has spent the previous night working on Leary's back and other anatomical parts. For no perceptible reason, he tells this drop-dead gorgeous feral creature with those infinitely deep blue eyes and that sluttish lisp that, "I've thought things over and I don't think we should see each other anymore. I'm just not ready for this." Half the men on the planet are ready for this, if he's not.

Hurley, Buscemi, and Guzman give us the best performances. Chris Noth is interesting too. It's surprising how, with his black hair slicked back and gelled, draped in an expensive-looking wardrobe that is too flashy for most tastes, he looks and acts like a villain. He'd make a pretty good heavy, actually, now that he's getting lumpier. An easy actor to watch. Guzman occupies some of the same territory; a striking physical presence whose valence could lean in either direction.

The art direction is pretty good. The settings are supposed to look sleazy and they do. And the score is cute. What we hear behind the credits sounds a little like The Saxophone Quartet.

But that's not enough to make up for the rest of the movie. In a way it's kind of an embarrassment to watch, like DePalma's rip offs of Hitchcock. It's a creepy feeling to watch people degrade any talents they might have for the sake of a few bucks, although, God knows, we don't always realize what the outcome is going to look like.

Anyway, it's a waste of time.