By Robert Scucci
| Updated
When Tommy Wiseau Room upon its release in 2003, it was not well received by both audiences and critics. Citizen Kane of bad movies.Wiseau, who wrote, directed, produced, edited, personally financed and starred in the film, decided to backtrack and said the film was always intended to be a dark comedy rather than the serious drama it originally set out to be. But there is one movie that confuses me even more Roomand this is Neil Breen's Double down.
double down Breen's 2005 debut boasts similar accolades to Wiseau's work, but plays it so straight that I'm not sure if he's sincere and deceptive or if he's our generation's Andy Kauffman. the game.
Suspense Or Satire?
Double down It is supposed to be a suspense thriller about shadow operations, computer hacking, bioterrorism, grief and revenge. The film's synopsis on IMDB states that it is “the controversial story of a lone genius who shuts down the Las Vegas Strip… The government can't stop him. As he reunites with his dead lover every night.
On paper and at face value, Double down sounds like a cross between Hackers and John Wick movies, but what's shown on the screen couldn't be further from the movie's depiction. I can only guess that this synopsis was written by Neil Breen, who, like Wiseau, wrote, directed, produced, edited, personally financed and starred in his own film.
Terrorism on one side of the Danube
Neil Breen plays Aaron Brand in the film Double downand he is the master of all works. He's a genius with remote access to every government satellite, and his list of accomplishments is as ridiculous as the denim vest that adorns his various medals of honor (of which there are many). After Aaron becomes so “digitally and electronically powerful,” the Secret Strategic Support Branch of the Defense Intelligence Agency, with whom he worked very closely in the past, feels threatened by his abilities and kills his girlfriend.
In a flashback sequence, Aaron screams “uggghhh!” after exclaiming, swims face down, completely naked, in a swimming pool next to her dead lover. when he is fatally shot by a sniper lurking in the distance.
After receiving orders from another country to shut down the Las Vegas Strip for two months, Aaron sets to work with a “small, simple, shiny setup” consisting of five laptops, a handful of flip phones and a few Dish Network satellites. It is attached to the trunk of a “Mercedes” car.
Living a lonely life in the desert to secretly carry out multiple acts of terrorism, Aaron drives while eating canned tuna, despite being a millionaire. While Bree's many exposition dumps suggest that Aaron Brand is a skilled mercenary of the highest order, the fact that he's the greatest threat to humanity while trying to drive and eat at the same time completely undermines the premise of the film.
Lack of self-awareness or in jest?
It may sound like I made this all up, but Double down It's full of contradictions and surprises that make you wonder if Bree is in on the joke.
Double down featuring anthrax-laced strawberries, failed newlywed conspiracies, secret government meetings in broad daylight in grocery store parking lots, breaking into a Ferrari with a flip phone, curing brain cancer with a mysterious pebble, and Neil Breen sitting in the back of it. car while frantically tapping away at several laptops that never turned on.
If you're a “Breniac” like me, then you'll see that the type of technical expertise described here Double down as is the thread that runs through all six of Neil Breen's films Fateful findingsequally curled.
Double down double down
Tommy Wiseau may be hooked again Room as a dark comedy, but Neil Breen constantly “doubled down” that he was a legitimate filmmaker and that he was the real deal. Whether he's in on the joke or not, I'm grateful to have been born into a world where Neil Breen exists, because I've had so much joy reading his filmography that I'd consider myself insane.
In case you can't find it Double down you can listen anywhere in the broadcast GenreVision Podcast if you're willing to fall into the same Breen pit I'm trying to escape right now.
