Double Bang

Rating:
Summary: Better than I expected....Jon Seda steals the show!
Review: "Double Bang" opens with the murder of police detective Vinnie Krailes (Adam Baldwin), who manages to finger his killer for his former partner Billy Brennan (William -- no relation -- Baldwin) before he expires. A series of somewhat tedious flashbacks follow which reveal that Vinnie was a dirty cop on the take from the mob. Brennan, who admittedly has "gotten dirty" a few times himself, magically sprouts a set of ethics and decides to avenge his ex-partner's death.

Enter flashy Salvatorre Piscaterre a.k.a. "Sally the Fish" (a highly entertaining turn by Jon Seda, who steals all his scenes and nabs the best lines), the baby-faced mobster who took out the hit on Vinnie. Sally sees his world not as a place where people either break the law or enforce it, but as an elaborate game where the best player on the field wins. For example, when Sally gets roughed up by the police, he literally takes his punches and chalks it up just as one of the costs of doing business. And having a dirty cop offed is nothing personal -- it's just a management decision meant to downsize his operation. Everyone's a player, and no one should be trusted.

So it comes as no surprise to Sally when Brennan finds an unlikely ally in Sally's Uncle Frankie (John Capodice), the local mob boss who is handed an ultimatum by the vengeful detective. Frankie, himself a prudent businessman, must decide whether to protect his impulsive nephew and risk giving up his entire operation to the Feds, or give up Sally and be seen as a snitch by his Family. In the end, Frankie devises a clever way to give satisfaction to all the parties involved.

In a slightly distracting subplot, Elizabeth Mitchell (here, incidentally, almost a dead-ringer for Carrie-Anne Moss) plays the conflicted Dr. Karen Winterman, a psychologist who has an ill-fated affair with one of her patients and manages to get caught up in the mess between Sally and Brennan.

To sum up, this movie is rather more cerebral than the average cops-and-robbers offering, and tries to flesh out each character's motivations instead of just presenting two-dimensional cliches. The pacing is a bit slow and uneven in places, so do not expect to see a shoot-em-up action flick. In the end, it was easier to respect the villains, who were willing to live and die by the sword so to speak, than to sympathize with the crooked cops who took bribes when it was convenient but got all self-righteous when things not surprisingly turned sour for them.

Rating:
Summary: Bottom of the Barrel
Review: Even if you give this movie the benefit of the doubt and assume it was _trying_ to be bad--trying to reinvograte the "B" flick genre, it's still terrible.

The writing is bad. The Baldwin brothers both provide mailed-in, vanilla performances. Tons of gratuitious violence are lost against a plot that's not at all engaging.

The lighthing tries to give a sense of place, but fails miserably. The extras aren't even handled well. This movie will take 105 minutes away from your life and you'll never get them back.

Rating:
Summary: pretty freakin' bad
Review: The only reason this gets more than ONE star is because Elizabeth Mitchell is spellbinding in almost everything i've seen her in - just forward it to the moments she's on screen - well worth the admission!