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Dissecting Trailers: “The Double”

Oh, hello, I didn’t see you there. Probably because you’re not near me at all. Time for another trip down the trailer hole. (I did not like that sentence one bit.) Today we’re going to dissect the political-espionage-action-thriller-whatever, The Double.

First, let’s watch.

Now, for the dissection. Or “vivisection,” if we want to believe the trailer is alive.


0:05 – 0:09: Two quick shots; We know we’re in Washington, D.C. I like it.

0:09 – 0:17: This highly trained assassin uses the age-old distraction technique called “Hey, Look Over There.”

0:18 – 0:21: Man, this movie had the HELL produced out of it.

0:21 – 0:23: I hate to tell you this, Martin, but he prefers to be called “Muhammad Ali” now.

0:23 – 0:28: Is this what old men argue about? Who is and is not dead?

0:29 – 0:37: That always happens in these situations. Anytime there’s a group of seven and you want to get them all, you always miss the one they’re named after. That’s why Chicago and Seattle are still at large.

0:37 – 0:41: Wait, what? What does that exchange mean? Gere: “He’s dead. I shot him in the chest.” Sheen: “And survived.” He survived shooting another guy in the chest? Yeah, of course he did. That’s one of the easiest things in the world to survive, taking for granted the gun doesn’t explode.

0:42 – 0:44: Boom! Getting contradicted by a guy named “Topher.” What a blow to the ego.

0:44 – 0:47: You know how you know he’s a genius? He’s haphazardly carrying tons of files and paperwork. Smart people never have adequate document storage.

0:48 – 0:50: Oh, big surprise, they’re gonna be partners. It’s never, “I’d like the two of you to never see each other again.”

0:51 – 0:56: Can people routinely stand on top of the White House? Also, doesn’t Martin Sheen know you can’t prove a negative?

0:57: “From the Writers of ‘WANTED'” So, presumably, the whole thing will be about a giant loom.

0:58 – 1:03: He trained them all to take part in the Batley Townswomen’s Guild reenactment of the Battle of Pearl Harbor.

1:03: “And ‘3:10 to YUMA'” Okay, I liked that movie. Fair enough.

1:04 – 1:06: Every single weapon I can think of? So, like, a rake? A barbecue fork? A copy of War & Peace? A porcupine? A Klingon bat’leth?

1:07 – 1:10: On the other side of that red line, it’s nothing but old ladies and mailmen.

1:10 – 1:12: “I want to be a friend to him. More than a friend — a lover. I want to know his soul.”

1:12 – 1:20: One should never have to be reminded that they have a wife and two kids. “Oh, them? I guess I should worry about them. But I’d rather know Cassius.” Cassius doesn’t care who he has to eliminate, which is a good way to play it. Assassins need to be aloof at all times. They can’t be like, “I am SOOOO excited about eliminating you.” Then the victim will play hard to get.

1:21 – 1:30: Aww, snap! Richard Gere has been Cassius the WHOLE TIME. I didn’t see this coming in the least, certainly not from his perpetual insistence that Cassius is dead. Oh, and why would a vampire need a gun? He’s really a vampire, right? That’s why they hired him for that show.

1:31 – 1:36: Why do trailers these days insist on showing us when recognizable actors get killed? And with fishing line of all things. Very undignified. Though, it’s cool that MI-6 is finally marketing Bond weapons for the general public.

1:36 – 1:40: That’d be impressive if we knew he was shooting AT anybody.

1:40 – 1:45: More car chases need to involve boring-ass luxury sedans.

1:45 – 1:51: Like snapping his fingers. He’s the Johnny B. Goode of murder.

1:52 – 1:57: They teach you in the interrogation handbook not to be so yelly and rapey.

1:58 – 2:03: “The entire time, he’s been hunting himself.” What a stupid, idiotic, dumb line of dialogue. “He’s a really good agent so of course he didn’t just pretend to hunt Cassius. He literally was hunting himself, but he was always one step ahead of he.”

2:04 – 2:08: Remember these people? They’re in our film.

2:09 – 2:16: The obligatory bunch of action clips out of context.

2:16 – 2:18: “It would seem so.” So, are they going to try to tell us there are two of him? Or that he’s got multiple personalities? God, I hate movies like that. There should be a mandatory $6 Million fine for making movies where it was “All in their head.” I hope it’s just that he’s evil.

2:18 – 2:25: The title, The Double, with the fracturing down the middle makes me think this might be a split personalities movie. Goddammit.

Ehhh… this movie looks okay, I guess. Sort of derivative. Okay, insanely derivative. And not a good trailer either.

-Kanderson survived shooting a guy in the chest once… Follow him on TWITTER

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Comments

  1. damocles_74 says:

    Are you F*CKING kidding me?! He’s the bad guy and they showed it in the previews? Imagine if they had done that in other movies that had a great twist. They would have NOT been great. I had some ass-hat ruin the Matrix for me when I was training in Ft. Irwin. I don’t need the production company doing it in their trailers! This isnt the first time something like this has happened, and i doubt it will be the last. For f*cks sake.

  2. Lindsey D says:

    You know they are dumbing things down for the audience when the “big reveal” of the villain takes place IN the preview. This one will die a quick box office death.

  3. Greg says:

    You don’t have to see the movie, the trailer spoiled the entire thing. Or, in a shocking twist, we find out Topher Grace is wrong and the assassin is actually Martin Sheen. There. I saved you 10 bucks.

  4. Gabriel says:

    I kind of doubt I will see this movie. Maybe if it is on Netflix streaming. I was freaking bored by it. Which should be very difficult to do in under 3 minutes. Also Topher looked like the best part of the film. The rest seemed boring and predictable.