"Iggy fronted the organisation but the brains behind it was a man called Edward Ross - cold, calculating and totally ruthless."
At times, "Double X" is so inept and clumsy that it looks like a 10-year-old's concept of a gangster thriller. In "The Long Good Friday", you believed in the organisation headed by Bob Hoskins' superbly frightening Harold Shand - by contrast, Simon Ward's bunch look like a set of kids playing at being criminals. The idea that a man whose criminal empire seems to encompass a dozen people and a small nightclub is planning to build new cities across the world is as ludicrous and overblown as the film's pretensions.
On the credit side, "Double X" manages a neat twist two-thirds of the way through as well as a couple of good performances - Chloë Annett as Sarah takes the film more seriously than it deserves whilst Bernard Hill has lots of fun as the limping and sardonic Iggy. But the photography is strangely drab despite some nice locations and the soundtrack is awful. The makers should check out Ian David Diaz's excellent "The Killing Zone" for an example of how to make this type of film.
Finally, watch out for the scene where Norman Wisdom slaps his double-crossing lover Gemma Craven. This has to be the wimpiest, most laughable "slap" in motion picture history! The fact that the director didn't ask for a retake sums up the problems with "Double X".
At times, "Double X" is so inept and clumsy that it looks like a 10-year-old's concept of a gangster thriller. In "The Long Good Friday", you believed in the organisation headed by Bob Hoskins' superbly frightening Harold Shand - by contrast, Simon Ward's bunch look like a set of kids playing at being criminals. The idea that a man whose criminal empire seems to encompass a dozen people and a small nightclub is planning to build new cities across the world is as ludicrous and overblown as the film's pretensions.
On the credit side, "Double X" manages a neat twist two-thirds of the way through as well as a couple of good performances - Chloë Annett as Sarah takes the film more seriously than it deserves whilst Bernard Hill has lots of fun as the limping and sardonic Iggy. But the photography is strangely drab despite some nice locations and the soundtrack is awful. The makers should check out Ian David Diaz's excellent "The Killing Zone" for an example of how to make this type of film.
Finally, watch out for the scene where Norman Wisdom slaps his double-crossing lover Gemma Craven. This has to be the wimpiest, most laughable "slap" in motion picture history! The fact that the director didn't ask for a retake sums up the problems with "Double X".